Cult of intelligence

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It is proposed that this article be deleted because of the following concern: Synthesis; the "intelligence" referred to in the book title is meant in the espionage sense. If you can address this concern by improving, copyediting, sourcing, renaming or merging the page, please edit this page and do so. You may remove this message if you improve the article or otherwise object to its deletion for any reason. To avoid confusion, it helps to explain why you object to the deletion, either in the edit summary or on the talk page. If this template is removed, it should not be replaced. The article may be deleted if this message remains in place for five days.Prod, concern: Synthesis; the "intelligence" referred to in the book title is meant in the espionage sense. This template was added 2008-06-15 10:57; five days from then is 2008-06-20 10:57. If you created the article, please don't take offense. Instead, consider improving the article so that it is acceptable according to the deletion policy. Author(s) notification template: {{subst:prodwarning|Cult of intelligence}} ~~~~

The "cult of intelligence" is a usually pejorative expression which refers to different concepts in sociology, politics, and popular culture.

Contents 1 Sociology 2 Politics 3 Popular culture 4 References

[edit] Sociology

The expression "cult of intelligence" is used by social critics to describe a pervasive supremacist ideology based on the belief that individuals who are intellectually gifted and/or score high on IQ tests are those whose views on a matter are to be taken the most seriously or carry the most weight; whose views and actions are most likely to be constructive to society as a whole; or whose intelligence render them especially fit to not only exist but govern.^[1][2]

[edit] Politics

In his 1974 non-fiction book The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, former American intelligence officer Victor Marchetti used the expression "cult of intelligence" to denounce what he viewed as a counterproductive mindset and culture of secrecy, elitism, amorality and lawlessness within and surrounding the Central Intelligence Agency in the service of American imperialism.^[3]

There exists in our nation today a powerful and dangerous secret cult -- the cult of intelligence. Its holy men are the clandestine professionals of the Central Intelligence Agency. Its patrons and protectors are the highest officials of the federal government. Its membership, extending far beyond governmental circles, reaches into the power centers of industry, commerce, finance, and labor. Its friends are many in the areas of important public influence -- the academic world and the communications media. The cult of intelligence is a secret fraternity of the American political aristocracy. The purpose of the cult is to further the foreign policies of the U.S. government by covert and usually illegal means, while at the same time containing the spread of its avowed enemy, communism. Traditionally, the cult's hope has been to foster a world order in which America would reign supreme, the unchallenged international leader. Today, however, that dream stands tarnished by time and frequent failures. Thus, the cult's objectives are now less grandiose, but no less disturbing. It seeks largely to advance America's self-appointed role as the dominant arbiter of social, economic, and political change in the awakening regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. And its worldwide war against communism has to some extent been reduced to a covert struggle to maintain a self-serving stability in the Third World, using whatever clandestine methods are available.

– Victor Marchetti, The CIA and The Cult of Intelligence, 1973

Socially as well as professionally they cliqued together, forming a sealed fraternity. They ate together at their own special favorite restaurants; they partied almost only among themselves; their families drifted to each other, so their defenses did not always have to be up. In this way they increasingly separated themselves from the ordinary world and developed a rather skewed view of that world. Their own dedicated double life became the proper norm, and they looked down on the life of the rest of the citizenry. And out of this grew what was later named -- and condemned -- as the "cult" of intelligence, an inbred, distorted, elitist view of intelligence that held it to be above the normal processes of society, with its own rationale and justification, beyond the restraints of the Constitution, which applied to everything and everyone else.

– Former CIA director William Colby, Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA, 1978

[edit] Popular culture

In reaction to Victor Marchetti's use of the expression "cult of intelligence", it has also come to be used by some authors of non-fiction and fiction to describe a cohesive social group, often with a pyramidal structure, which is fanatically devoted to gathering information, sometimes of an esoteric or occult nature.^[4]

[edit] References