THOUSANDS OF FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES

LLR Pages

Friday, June 6, 2008

Are Libertarians Built To Achieve Success?

Today, a topic for discussion:

I remember being part of a discussion on the old LPUS listserv years ago about Libertarian Party members' personality types on the Myers-Briggs spectrum. While the survey was hardly scientific, a significant majority of those involved in the discussion said they were INTJs. Since INTJs are generally scientific-minded systems builders who look to "big picture" solutions, this makes sense for those attracted to the LP. But INTJs are a very small proportion of the population at large -- less than one percent, by some accounts.

Similarly, I have several times recently seen Libertarians' IQs on their blogs or websites. Putting aside the larger debate of whether IQ is a useful measurement, in many cases these LP members' IQs were quite high, even genius-level. Again, this makes sense; one needs to be pretty intelligent and engaged in order to investigate political philosophies and alternative parties. But again, those with IQs in the 130-plus range account for only about two percent of the U.S. population.

My question, then: Can a party that appeals primarily to an exceptional but proportionally tiny subset of the population ever achieve mass acceptance and victory?

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Can a party that appeals primarily to an exceptional but proportionally tiny subset of the population ever achieve mass acceptance and victory?"

Absolutely, but here's the catch. We have to get better at communicating with people that aren't already predisposed to think like us. We have to speak their language in order to make the leap.