Well, he does like the pagan temple setting and being treated like a divinity. But more like a character in one of Aristophanes' comedies. Or from I, Claudius or The Life of Brian.
Posted on 09/16/2008 3:50:52 PM PDT by Petronski
No kidding. My family has been studying the Greek classics for the last six months or so, and there's a definite outcry of "MOONBAT!" about Plato. What you can expect, I guess, when you introduce Thomas Sowell first.
Well, he does like the pagan temple setting and being treated like a divinity. But more like a character in one of Aristophanes' comedies. Or from I, Claudius or The Life of Brian.
Hope I'm not saying this the wrong way, and maybe I'm just overanalyzing this - Interesting how we see intelligence a little differently. Your weigh languages and the classics higher while I look at sciences and math as a larger determinant. Perhaps it's our individual past - I struggled with trying to learn German way back in high school (way, way back), but I have always found it easy to deal with physics and math. Mechanical things are art to me. Ancient paintings are just old paintings.
I'm pretty certain that you see that differently.
Anyway, getting back to the primary subject - I really don't see any strong intelligence in Obama beyond his skill at speaking the written word. He balks when he has to think on his feet. He's very much the reciter - "put air in your tires to save gas". Probably doesn't even understand why inflating tires properly or higher would decrease rolling resistance - he just read it somewhere and recited it.
I think accomplishments in maths and physics and so on are also strong evidence of intelligence. These aren’t intuitive for me, although I can learn them with diligent effort. I learn languages easily and absorb literature for the sheer joy. My 17-year-old daughter in community college is agonizing over Spanish, while rhapsodizing over automotive technology. My 6-year-old, as I said, is learning 3 languages. (He’s nuts.) My 10-year-old has perfect pitch and reads Spanish phonetically without understanding it. It’s just personal differences.
However, whatever evidences of intelligence or academic competence we look at, I’m still not seeing that we have any evidence on Barack Obama. Okay, he can read a text fluently and persuasively. That’s an accomplishment, such as it is, but it’s not an indicator of intelligence per se. It’s a form of acting skill.
The concept of Barack Obama in an Aristophanes comedy will keep me up at night laughing hysterically. Monty Python is stylistically right in the zone. When those guys meet Aristophanes in the Hereafter, it’ll be Old Home Week.
Power to the peeeooopppplllleee!!!!
But I find the physical much more intuitive - much more interesting, and easier to master. Perhaps it's partly the "interest" thing. I, too, have family members that carry some interesting traits - Mom has perfect pitch, and my oldest sister speaks 3 languages. My middle sister's youngest son is a gifted pianist, but chose to join the Navy right out of high school rather than continue with music. I speak English, and still remember about 50 German words, but I'd rather rebuild a transmission than study a foreign language.
Indeed, we all differ. Even within our own families.
I would say that the skill of speaking and persuading is a sign of respectable intelligence. Although I tend to refer to Obama as being incredibly stupid (well, he does subscribe to the democrat cause so he can't be too intelligent), I think that overall, he is of average intelligence. His skill in the area of public speaking and reading indicates some intelligence, but it appears that he sometimes doesn't understand what he's reading. And if he isn't reading, he really stumbles. It's hard to say whether that stumbling comes from a fear of public speaking (I've been through that a few times) or a lack of strong understanding of the subject material. His gaffs don't speak well of him either way. And some don't seem so much mis-spoken as pointed remarks made without regard to others hearing. It sometimes seems as if he thinks he's speaking privately with a group of like-minded people when, in fact, his statements are quite public (witness the "lipstick" statement).
I agree, simple verbal facility is *something*. I can read persuasively in English, Spanish, Latin, Japanese, Greek, and French (although I got a certificate for the Worst French Accent in my college choir one year :-). However, it's an awfully weak foundation for someone running for POTUS.
I always wonder about leftists, and Democrats in general. Are they hawg-stupid, or are they evil. I'm going toward evil with Obama, but we still don't have much concrete evidence that it's not simple Stupid.
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