Pomposity, sharp suits, a clipped accent courtesy of your private or finishing school, the English view of intelligence is a chromatic aberration.
The individuals put forward as innovative, ground-breaking, free-thinking creative types share one common theme - these people are repeatedly incorrect in their assertions.
Think Niall Ferguson or Richard Dawkins.
Meanwhile, Real intelligence is mocked.
In that the fundamental tenet of intelligence is pattern recognition at speed, we suggest that Wayne Rooney is markedly more intelligent than the alleged academics mentioned above.
Pattern recognition ahead of one's contemporaries is the key edge in any discipline - market analysis, economics, biology, music, IT and football.
When Rooney is on the field of play, he sees patterns of movement prior to the opposition, he intuitively feels the movement of colleagues, he is able to deliver exactly the best option of those available.
These analyses are akin to real-time feedback loops in complex structures.
Furthermore, to be able to achieve this, he is athletically primed and psychologically comfortable.
Through nature and nurture and self-application, Rooney has developed these pattern recognition and intuitive intelligence skills to extremely high levels.
He rarely fails to perform.
Moreover, the man possesses strategic and sustainable intelligence, withstanding the pressures of rogue operators like Michael Owen and the mainstream media journalists (54% public school, by the way), to plan ahead while maintaining his short-term competitive advantage.
He has emotional intelligence.
He has sharp focus and the ability to see the big picture.
He is contrarian.
He reduces complicated Realities to simplicity.
He is experimental.
He has the ability to conceptualise.
He undertakes continual self-improvement.
His play incorporates Real joined-up thinking.
He has perfect timing.
He thinks creatively and laterally.
Proper thinking outside of the box.
And, yet, because he has a face like the Map of Ireland, and both he and his girlfriend have northern working class names, the man's intelligence is simply not recognised.
Real intelligence requires a knowledge of Chaucer and Eton Rules, you see.
In "The Postmodern Condition: A Report On Knowledge", Jean-François Lyotard isolates this societal blinkering towards intelligence.
In summation, he views knowledge a little like a bicycle wheel, with the area between each of the spokes representing a particular module of knowledge.
For the efficient performativity of a free market system, only certain of these knowledges have relevance - those that add value, profit and near-future direction to the system.
So IT is raised high above its Real status as are hyperreal knowledges such as marketing, business administration, financial market analysis and economics.
Other areas that do not provide the necessary returns to owners and shareholders are simply regarded as superfluous intelligence - Archaeology, Cosmology, Philosophy, Theology, pure Science that does not have militaristic uses, pure Mathematics, Behavioural Psychology, Latin, studies of consciousness etc etc.
Not only is knowledge limited in scope but the knowledge that is established incrementally in the chosen areas of endeavour are monetised in an antisocial manner.
"Oh my God, I've had an interesting idea. Patent it. Copyright it. Prevent open source solutions for the benefits of all. After all, this is probably my only big one."
This line of thinking does not represent specialised generalism or generalised specialism, this line of thinking does not allow for the changing of one's mind when new information comes to light, this line of thinking cannot determine cause and effect.
What is knowledge?
It is not creative accounting or fiddling a quorate vote, it is not finding loopholes in hyperreal structures, it is not a misuse of statistics and science to produce fake knowledge, it is not cornering a market.
Knowledge is universal, the staying true to evolutionary roots, the refusal to be distracted by fake realities.
This is an issue particularly in the free market ideologue states.
Britain produces Niall Ferguson, Alan Sugar, Jamie Oliver and Carol Vorderman as public intellectuals.
America provides us with the repeatedly failing Lawrence Summers, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and Martha Stewart.
And after all...
Who would you rather father your child?
Wayne Rooney or Richard Dawkins?
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
