A 'moron' theory that makes sense

WORM'S EYE VIEW

Set up a flag. Ask everyone in the world to goose-step past that flag in serried ranks, saluting as they go. The marchpast will continue until eternity.

There are more babies born every minute than people marching past the flag. The twin acts of procreation and birth take more time than walking two paces. But even soldiers devote more time to baby-making than to flag-marches.

And, more and more of those babies will be morons. Because most people are of below average intelligence and they mostly marry people of less than average intelligence and raise children of less than average intelligence.

It was in the 1940s that the theory of the Marching Morons (MM) was articulated. It's a linear, dystopic projection. The assumptions are interesting. "Average" is, of course, the arithmetic mean rather than the median or mode.

In terms of the mean, most people are "lower than average". The mean is inflated by the presence of a few super-intelligent persons.

It's the same situation as with the Indian cricket team. Six members of the XI have personal averages lower than the team-average because Tendulkar, Laxman and Dravid score so heavily.

Another truth embedded in the MM theory: People of lower education have more kids. This is a basic axiom in development. Religion may matter.

But more highly educated people (if we can use education as a surrogate for intelligence) have fewer children. Italy versus Brazil, Iran versus Bangladesh and Bihar versus Tamil Nadu "" the equation holds across large populations.

Hence, genetically, most people aren't super-bright. What's more, people of lower education are also, by and large, less than brilliant at teaching their kids to be smart.

So, regardless of intelligence being created by nature or nurture (that's a heated debate), succcessive generations should show a trend towards increasing idiocy.

A reader of page three, if one can use the word "reader" loosely, would assume that to be the case. So would anyone who watches Star Plus or MTV. But successive generations don't really show a tendency to increasing stupidity.

It is part of the mores of the MTV generation to flaunt bizarre tastes in your face. But it takes real intelligence to structure and deliver that content as we access it.

Think of the range of arcane technologies that have matured over the last 20 years and recall that the research was done by young people. Nope, kids may be getting weirder but they're not getting dumber.

In the 1940s, people assumed that MM would mirror reality. Science-Fiction writers explored the consequences. Kurt Vonnegut in Harrison Bergeron postulated a society where bright people would be handicapped (by means of continuous distractions and electric shocks) to make them behave like "regular guys".

C M Kornbluth dreamt of an intelligentsia that ran ad-campaigns designed to lure morons into gas-chambers. John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar, (written in 1967, when the global population could have stood on Zanzibar), conceptualised food-wars.

The current demographic assumption is: the more, the merrier. A rapid cut in growth rates leads to ageing unproductive populations.

This has occurred in Europe and Japan. China will see this happen in circa 2025. America has escaped only because of a relatively looser immigration policy.

Young people can be trained to be productive and the world can absorb larger populations. While we can't help genetics, we can improve nurture by making education available to everyone.

Food sufficiency isn't a problem "" just improve distribution of the grain-mountains and butter-lakes that the First World destroys.

India has gained global mindshare along with Brazil because of the shift in demographic theory. Both are very young nations that can be trained to be global centres of production.

It is Dr Joshi's task to ensure that training occurs. He is doing the best he can by cutting IIM entrance fees. It is not his fault that today's incumbent management trainees would rather see subsidies pumped into schools and take loans themselves to get through their MBAs. That merely bears testimony to their bizarre tastes.

Or perhaps kids are actually getting stupider?