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Some can agree with it, disagree with it, but it remains as the current scientific method for accessing what's between our ears. Obviously someone could be immoral, amoral, evil, violent, twisted, perverted, a political zealot, an ideologue, a relative conformist, or just totally opposed to something normal or good.... and still have a high IQ.
I think, like anything else, it should be questioned. What is "intelligence?" Someone, for example, could attain advanced degrees due to having great memorizational ability; but they could be severely lacking in creative ability, problem solving skills, and sometimes even common "cause and effect" logic. Political figures are a good example of this. Still, IQ does tell us a lot. I wouldn't totally hang my hat on it, but it can be compared to global demographics, sources of technologies, and other factors; and it can at least be determined that IQ tells us much.
Quite frankly, the IQ of native Cisalpines is about 110... the highest in the world. Even then, that doesn't mean that every individual is up to that standard; nor does is mean that a Cisalpine society will always be the best. One good example of "a self-propelled milieu of ideas" (as opposed to an intercultural crossroads of ideas) is the early automobile industry; whereby urban industrial centers in north Italy, Germany, and Japan in particular were able to develop entrepreneurial-technological environments for development.
Germany--which has a slightly lower average IQ (about 105) than true Cisalpines--still maintains a higher standard of living, a slightly higher inherent technological ingenuity, and better infrastructure. What is interesting is that the German-speaking countries, which are of Alpine and Germanic stock; and the Cisalpine regions, which are of true-Mediterranean and Alpine stock with Germanic admixture.... have gotten the best technological results in Europe. Again, this does not guarantee a better society or even a higher standard of living.
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There are endless theories and quagmires regarding the comparing of collective or demographic IQs, so I think I will just avoid that part of it mainly due to the endless complexities and layers of bias. Suffice to say, IQ tells us a lot, but not everything. I think that an individual could have a high IQ and not be nearly as successful as a cunning person with an average IQ. I like to think that creativity and logic carry a little more weight than cold intelligence and ruthless cunning. Actually, it's all mixed together; but it's helpful to assess ourselves.
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7 comments:
One of those hitting-the-nail-on the-head-articles.
Yeah, history, current state of affairs, personal experience, etc. are all consistent with the idea of high intellect among all the various North/Central nations. Literacy rates in the Po valley and the hilly EtrUmbria proper were at about 30%, if not more, during the medieval era. Independent city states---- quasi republics, really; the merchant could and did hold more power than a noble. Mass abject poverty, political repression, and religious fanaticism were never a staple of life in those areas either(the relatively secular papal states were not the medieval equivalent of the IRI). Florentine merchants held the reins of Europe’s economy. I can go on and on, of course, but I think we know the story already.
Now, I don’t dispute the IQ data for a second, but, yes, it should be stressed that the various Lombard peoples throughout history also had something else going for them: CQ, or the creative quotient. That explains greatly why such long strides in logical disciplines and the arts were taken there and not in China/Japan/korea where, apparently the average IQ is over 100. Actually, this CQ is relatively high across most European groups, I presume.
Robert Mondavi is a textbook example of all of this, hailing from East Umbria/West Picenum.
“South-Central Europeans”. Great term, you coined there. I take it to mean: akin to Central Europeans in many aspects but residing in a warmer climate and with a BIT more passion. Occitans/Catalans, Central French, Croats, and possibly Serbs and Romanians also fall under this category, imo.
Ancient world--Various Greeks took home much of the gold at the time, I guess, but be sure not to forget the origins of folks like:
Catullus, Livy, Tacitus, Pliny, Virgil, Cornelius Nepos, Plautus, Ovid(Abruzzo wasn’t really a part of the “south” back then)…
We also have fine statesmen like Pompey(Picene) and Quintus Ventidius Bassus, also a Picene(avenged Marcus Crassus' death at Carrhae--won the Parthian war).
This comes with unfortunate caveat. Northern/Central Italians as well as other South-Central Europeans tend to have an unbelievably low self-concept. Much of this is due to ignorance of their own history, willful or otherwise.
A lot of Tuscans think themselves to be descended from Anatolians(and thus related to modern Turks) and just think of themselves as “Italians”. Occitans’ belief of descent from Egyptians and Phoenicians is coupled with a fleeting sense of ethnicity, a sad truth exacerbated by France’s “vergonha” policies. Catalans, a subgroup of the Occitans, seem to be eager to readily assimilate millions of Andalusians and Morrocans as brothers.
In the best case, these groups simply not have a strong sense of ethnic solidarity. There are exceptions, but few and in-between.
But modern Mediteranids, in Europe or the Middle East, exhibit a strong sense of identity ---be it based on solid truths or delusional propaganda to cover up for their (self-perceived) embarrassing shortcomings. Perhaps the Persians with their comically unfounded “Aryan race” diatribes come to mind readily.
A demographic group could have a higher average IQ than another demographic group, yet lack the number of geniuses... and I think CQ goes along with that pattern.
"Asia Minor" was what I would call true-Mediterranean up to a millennium ago when it was overrun by Turkic tribes. From what evidence I have seen, Tuscany has an even higher average IQ than Piedmont or Lombardy.
I'm quick to accept folk-minded individuals from cultures that seem to collectively lack a genuine folk-identity (English, Spaniards, etc.). Still, Cisalpine peoples have been roped into this "Italian concept." I always say, would Irish people like being called "British Islanders?" How about "Balkanians?"
I remember once seeing a coffee mug in which the handle was on the inside, and labeled "Italian mug." A people can have the world's highest IQ, and be at the apex of every area of human endeavor, and apparently still be perceived by some as dummies... merely because of how one period in political history unfolded.
If someone or something is going to be presented as 180 degrees opposite of reality... well, that sort've defeats the purpose of humanity itself.
True Mediterranean Europeans were populations living in the south of Europe 2000 years ago with minimal to moderate Neolithic background and minimal to moderate Near Eastern cultural influence. People like Ligures (who called the stretch from the Arno to the Ebro home), Etruscans(imo), Umbri, Dacians, Illyrians, Pyreneean Iberians, Veneti, and others like Gallic migrants, fit this criteria. I guess this also applied to a lot of Greek tribes, some of whom inhabited Asia minor, at least early on in the game.
Turks---Neither autosomal nor Y-DNA data is consistent with any large Mongoloid background. In fact, it just confirms how Levantine they really are. Most are of Turks don’t really differ much from East Med people: Lebanese, Armenians, Persians, Kurds, and even Modern Greeks in other respects as well---gastronomy, mentality, and so on. Only a trained chef can differentiate between traditional Turkish, Modern Greek and Egyptian cuisines.
Now, if anything, Turks have a moderate amount of Dinaric Balkanian and West European bg: Ancient Greeks, who were sort of a mixed Levantine-European race, settled the coast of Asia Minor, Roman Empire population movements, Ligurian and Venetian converts serving the caliphate, Muslim exodus from the Balkans after WW1, etc.
Data varies, somewhat. I’ve seen Tuscany score high, but I’ve also seen Marche and Friuli score at the top. I guess the results of the former are sort of consistent with one poet’s line describing the clever Marchigiani(I forget the poet, unfortunately); well, we also have Robert Mondavi… Interestingly, the city of Rome was heavily influenced by Picenes, both in the past and in modern times. In all honesty, though, I think Emilians probably have the highest IQ and CQ among all so-called Cisalpine peoples, but by a modest amount.
The emergence of fake or semi-fake nation-states in the 19th century sowed the seeds, in large part, to the decline of the West we are witnessing. In deep-sixing their rich folk identities in favor of new, rather arbitrary, designations, the people of the West have made themselves more complacent and ripe to the unfavorable policies and conditions we are seeing in action today. Ask yourself this question: would a town in, say, 98% Venet Treviso province 40 years ago accept the construction of a mega-mosque in its environs accompanied by an influx of Kurds? Probably not. By contrast, in places like Milan and Turin, anything goes, because there is little there binding people together other than a general location on a map. “Diversity is (not) strength” and globalism are but two issues stemming from this lack of ethnic identities, unfortunately. It’s more involved than that.
From what it looks like, Europeans see Italy through different lenses than Americans---most know the score. However, many Americans these days have these overly simplistic, cartoonish almost, stereotypes about different parts of the world that are shaped not by books or even Wikipedia, but TV shows like “Everyone loves Raymond” and tall tales about mafiosi in NYC(compounding this is the psychological fact that, negative or humorous images tend to make a larger imprint and are just more exciting, on a carnal level).
Such sad truths may indeed make one questions the purpose of humanity, but in my mind that only serves to reaffirm the purpose of this blog, to bring the Cisapline diaspora together but also to educate Americans and others about the integral place of the greater Cisapline civilization in Western civilization.
It goes without saying that the term "Italian" is often associated with the highest art, science, technology, and ingenuity; while at the same time being associated with negativity and general sillyness. I think that if someone is of Cisalpine ancestry, then it's a struggle worth accepting. Even if political history had unfolded more in our favor, still under the current global geopolitics, a struggle would exist anyway.
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