Sticks and Stones

 Indisputably, any citizen of the United States would want politicians that accurately represented them and worked for the benefit of the nation. That said, the qualifications for office are, at best, adequate. Most of the requirements are reasonable standards. Each potential Congress member must be an American citizen for at least nine years and be a resident of the State they represent. Senators must be at least 30 years of age and representatives at least 25. The President must be a natural-born citizen and 35. However these are the only formal qualifications a candidate must have. This is why I suggest the addition of one more requirement: a mandatory IQ test result of at least 120 for every candidate for a governmental office.

At this point you may wonder, why on earth have candidates take IQ tests? Haven’t they proven themselves intelligent and motivated already by running for office? My reasoning is based on the assumption that the majority of the American population is intelligent and capable and therefore would be represented best by intelligent and capable politicians. However the truth of the matter is that quite a few political candidates, past and present, for any office, have substandard intelligence and have slipped through the cracks formed by the scant requirements. Two examples: Former President George H. W. Bush and current President George W. Bush. Daddy Bush has an IQ of 98 and our very own Dubya has an IQ of 91 (Lovenstein Institute Presidential IQ Study). An IQ score of 100 is considered average, with most likely professions being truck drivers, machine operators, farmers and carpenters. Bush Sr. was a Texas representative in 1966 and 1968 before being vice president to Ronald Reagan and then President. Bush Jr. was also a Texas representative, and became Governor of Texas in 1994. Obviously, a mandatory IQ test prior to campaigning would have saved America from the collective bad decision-making of the two Bushes, as neither of them would have made it to Congress at all.

Sure, most political candidates are smart and do their jobs well. Granted, the current requirements are logical and serve the purpose of providing the nation with good lawmakers and civil servants. Nevertheless, the addition of intelligence testing to the existing qualifications would reinforce the standard of politicians and lead to improved decision-making for the people’s benefit. Congress would not be stunted by any stupidity and would work more efficiently. Smarter politicians would also raise the rock-bottom public opinion of the government, and give the multitude of foreign countries that currently hate us, a more realistic impression of the American people. We can only benefit from such an addition, and although intelligence testing may not affect the majority of political candidates, it certainly would minimize the chances of ending up with a president who can’t pronounce the word nuclear.

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“Just as I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This is my idea of democracy.”

This idea expressed by Abraham Lincoln is a simple but fundamental one to the workings of a democracy. In order for it to function properly, it must include everyone capable of voting, and take them as equals.

So, do 16 and 17 year olds fall into this category? Do they deserve representation, and are they mature enough to use it responsibly?

Why should anyone have an interest in being represented? People should care because representation ensures your opinions are voiced on areas which affect you and that government listens. These are applicable to 16 year olds just as they are to 18 or 45 year olds. But what is more important, still, is that this demographic needs a voice on issues which are specific to them. The availability of youth facilities, the quality of schools, of children’s hospitals, policies towards combating youth crime and drug abuse: these are all aspects of society and politics on which many young people have a strong view, and a view which is relevant in informing policy. Few adults, it seems, can boast such an insight into these areas, and how best to solve them.

Representation is also desirable simply for the purpose of a more thorough democratic count. Since 16 year-olds do have to pay taxes, they are contributory members of society. Should they not have a say into how their money is spent, or how highly it is taxed in the future?

But we must strike a balance. It is clear that one should possess a certain level maturity before being allowed to vote. Have sixteen year-olds developed a sufficiently rational mind to be making such an integral decision?

Scientific research shows that, whilst there is evidence to suggest the development of the frontal lobes past sixteen, there is no discernible difference in the ability to weigh up different options and reach a reasoned judgement between sixteen and eighteen year-olds.

Young people do not go uneducated in political matters either. Many take Economics, Law, History or Politics at Advanced Level and it is compulsory to receive grounding in ‘Citizenship’ until the age of sixteen.

Yet the strongest argument, by far, for giving young people the vote is to look at what they can already do. I, at sixteen, am able to leave school, join the army, get married, have children, and, if that were not bad enough, hand over a good proportion of that directly to the Tax man. A discrepancy on this scale is simply unacceptable. Why is it that I am able to die for my country but have absolutely no means of influencing whether I go to war in the first place?

Admittedly, even if many sixteen and seventeen year-olds are politically astute and interested, perhaps far more are totally uninformed and irrational. Is it wise to extend suffrage to such a demographic? No less wise than to allow adults of all ages to vote despite the same level of knowledge and interest. As Winston Churchill said, “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” If this is true, it is sadly true for the entire electorate, and not merely pubescent teenagers.

Those who truly have no interest in deciding their future will more likely not bother to vote than vote irrationally. Thankfully, it seems too much bother for such people to register to vote and go to their local polling station. Those who are disenfranchised with their party are increasingly likely to not vote at all, out of protest, than they are to vote for a rival party.

This is a trend that needs reversing. In Hamburg, when this scheme was introduced, not only did 16-17 year-olds turn out in greater numbers than their 18-21 year-old counterparts, as they grew older they retained these good habits of voting, and turnout on the whole went up.

Young people need to learn how to be part of our democratic system whilst still young; whilst still enthused about issues which affect them. ‘Citizenship’ is only a ‘Mickey Mouse subject’ so long as it won’t affect you for another few years. But when it becomes important, now, young people start to sit up and listen. And this is what they need to do, if they have any desire in shaping the world in which they are to grow up.

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Many of you will have been as shocked as I was at the recent news that the World Bank has lambasted several Arabic countries for providing their children with extremely poor educations - “falling behind”. Reports the BBC:

The World Bank has said the quality of education in the Arab world is falling behind other regions and needs urgent reform if it is to tackle unemployment.

In a report, bank officials said Arab states had to make improving education their top priority, because it went hand-in-hand with economic development.

So many revelations to take in at once! Arab education needs reforming? But what’s wrong with textbooks that omit the Holocaust, maps that omit Israel, classrooms that omit girls? But not only does the World Bank deserves much praise for highlighting this sorry state of affairs, but also for the enlightening insight that education fosters economic development.

Come on. Is there anyone in the world for whom this was not blindingly obvious? Of course education encourage economic growth - we could ask first-year economics students at university the same question and get a much more edifying and learned response. I’m a Trotskyist - that shows how little I understand economics - and even I knew that. It really makes you wonder: what is the point?

What is more, how is this newsworthy? Arab countries, I thought, are renowned for their shoddy quality of education, it being on a par with their sinfully corrupt leaders and Islam-derived injustices towards women, homosexuals etc. Next they’ll be saying that these countries would be a lot better off with female emancipation and secular government - and imagine how surprised we’ll all be if they say that.

This is Senior Staff Writer Leo’s 14th post and the blog’s 63rd post. It was published on Thursday 7th February 2008, one month after Sticks and Stones was founded.

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When listening to an admissions officer for Dartmouth lament the fact that tens of thousands of applications arrived every year at her doorstep, I noticed her mention one aspect in particular about the applicant pool. Many applications would go to all eight Ivy League universities and a smattering of similarly prestigious universities: Stanford, Berkeley, Duke etc.

This phenomenon, dubbed an ‘unselection’ by a friend of mine, is where ambitious students select their colleges by ticking boxes down the length of the Top 10 list at US News and World Report. Their aim: to get into the very ‘best’ university possible, as though this is the ultimate goal of tertiary education. For them it is all about the label, the brand name, the mark that they can stamp on their resumes.

Whether or not colonial Massachusetts, Connecticut, or the Church of England believed this to be the reason for applying to Harvard, Yale, or Columbia is irrelevant. Today, 27,000 applications sit on desks at Agassiz House in Cambridge, MA. Many high school seniors apply to Ivy League universities as if all eight are one and the same because their short-term aim is not about finding which place suits them best, or even in which place they will flourish. It is all about that brand name.

This is dangerous because those who do arrive in Stanford, CA or Durham, NC may find themselves totally unsuitable for the lifestyle, culture, and intellectual rigour at these very different universities. The differences between them are countless and encompass every aspect of life and education. Choosing in the way students have is like buying a BMW, Mercedes Benz, or Audi purely to own an expensive, flashy car; and thinking all three will render exactly the same experience.

It is ludicrous to chose to live in NYC or SF purely because they are American ocean-front cities; and expect the experience to be exactly the same because they share this one characteristic.

Similarly, believing that your time at Harvard will be exactly like your time at Princeton is foolish. Students live at these universities for four years. If this isn’t a very well researched calculation, it could turn sour within the first semester. Despite all of this, tens of thousands of seniors apply only one criterion when picking colleges: cachet.

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This year is 18 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The end of the Evil Empire, the death of one manifestation of totalitarianism that the free world squared off against for half a century.

We know. By we I mean those of us born during or after 1989. By know I mean, unlike the ever-popular notion that children take the present moment and their liberties for granted, there are millions of children across the world captivated and fully aware of the significance of what happened that year, before they were born.

Films like The Lives of Others bring these decades into sharp and immediate focus but the real history is to be found through the work of Wired magazine which recently investigated the meticulous shredding undertaken by the Stasi in its last throes.

History reminds us of the most poignant and pivotal moments; the darkest of years and the most hopeful. 1989 represented a fundamental shift from stable hatred to unstable turmoil. Those of us who did not live through those times are no less prepared to speak about them, and speak about them authoritatively.

It is important that we treat our history with reverence and never forget how hard our parents and grandparents fought now-vanquished enemies for the liberties we, today, consider ‘normal’. They weren’t normal then, and it is dangerously foolish of us to neglect that.

However, it is equally dangerous to brand the new generation of citizenry unaware and apathetic. In every generation it is easy to find broad swathes of the population who seem totally incapable of thinking about things beyond what will bring them utmost pleasure in the here and now.

But in every generation, without fail, you will find hundreds of thousands of bright young men and women in whom the hope of tomorrow resides.

Yes, Mr Cohen you found the children whose accounts will add colour to your article. Heike Krupa’s students like Felix Blanke may be unaware of what communism was. He may be happy and content playing with computers, networking online and killing Orcs on World of Warcraft, but he is not the whole story. Don’t lose hope in our generation, don’t think we don’t care about the past. There are many of us who care deeply about history, who are truly passionate about learning about who did what, and when, and why, and how.

For Ricardo Westendorf ignorance may be bliss, but for many others of our generation, ignorance is extremely dangerous, and apathy even more so because it turns its blind eye to horrors. We know what 1989 meant, just as we know what 1933 meant. Rest assured that there are those of us out there who will never forget. But know that in 2019 I won’t write in the IHT portraying only the 18 year olds who don’t know what 9/11 means, because there will be those who do; and they are the ones upon whom we should focus our attention.

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