#academic study

To wit:

"Actual intelligence and functioning intelligence can be viewed as broadly analogous to potential and kinetic energy; although the transferral is neither as clean nor efficient where intelligence is concerned. Potential energy exists to become kinetic energy whereas in many cases actual intelligence is restrained and resists being applied to functioning intelligence. Actual intelligence does in fact understand individual responsibility and personal agency but too often functional intelligence deliberately denies or refuses the truth of the role of free will.

Multiple studies have shown a clear correlation between poor education and inadequate parenting and the decline of individual's ability to apply logic and critical thought. Standards that are reduced until they no longer serve a valid purpose and which are then combined with an inflated and false sense of self worth result in an individual whose identity is fragile and reliant on continuous reinforcement of the fallacy of exceptionalism for them to function.

Populism replaces the errant and inadequate parents with a broader platform of unassailable authority. It is demanding; obedience, belief, and the subsummation of independent thought are mandatory, but it is non-threatening. If the individual submits and conforms they are promises rewards and exalted status. The populist leader eliminates the threat to self posed by actual experts and those who have spent thousands of hours in study of their field. Intellectuals and experts undermine the narrative repeated ad nauseum by parents. That notion that the individual, despite lacking the information and ability to process that information, is 'as good as anyone else'. Anyone who can understand things that the individual has made no effort to research and investigate, anyone who can offer more insight than the populist leader, is not to be trusted.

The populist leader's appeal comes from unfounded claims of expertise that are never expounded upon. The leader displays authority but not intelligence. 'Common sense' is more important. The follower is not expected to think. They need only obey. A population that has been groomed through systemic dilution of responsibility and which has negated the role of effort in accomplishments; where intelligence is mocked rather than respected and celebrated, such a population exists in a state destined for exploitation and collapse.

Populism is a formula that inevitably creates mediocrity and conformity. As it entrenches itself it actively and persistently discourages thought. Conspiracy theories supersede science and the efforts of legitimate experts. Learning becomes the act of absorbing and parroting the messages given out by the populist leader. Contradictions are ignored. Blatant lies are acceptable because the populist leader can redefine truth.

The threat is most dire to history. The populist leader can rewrite, erase, or fabricate a history that supports whatever current claim is being proposed. An entire region could sink beneath the sea and vanish as though it never existed if this serves the purpose of the populist autocrat.

As the demand to think grows ever less the act of thinking becomes transgressive. Intelligence is a detriment. It complicates the acts of obedience and conformity and threatens to remove the individual from the safety of 'the group'. If you do not 'belong' you must then operate in that space outside where you are not handed simple and convenient answers. You thusly face the constant requirement to make decisions. Each of those decisions is perilous: the risk of being wrong, which does not exist within obedience, waits for the individual with every choice.

In all honesty, this semester has gone poorly—not because my classes are terrible (they’re not) or because I can’t competently write (arguable), but because being a grad student with a chronic illness sucks. I’ve been battling a new mystery thing for over a week now while trying to finish out the semester well. I’m in the last four weeks, and I need all my attention on research—not my body and its fickle self. It’s disheartening sometimes. I’d rather keep this to myself, wanting instead to be associated only with my writing than with personal health complications, but then who else might feel inadequate because everyone puts up a damn good front?

Perseverance, I suppose, is on my mind. I’m trying to be transparent about what it’s like to navigate PhD studies as a first-gen while retaining optimism about my program and faith in my ambitions—essentially, admitting that *some* things in life suck while others are imperfectly good.

My latest mini personal essay reflects on relocating for my program, trying to detangle responsibility from simply living, and my hope for ending the semester well. It means the world to me when people read these little essays, so I hope you do—and I hope it spurs thoughts of your own.

01.01.2026/Thursday

After a busy first semester of my MSc, I’m excited to return with a brand new workspace and a fresh perspective for the new year.