Too clever by half

The actress Kate Beckinsale is, by her own admission, an extremely intelligent woman. Alas, her awesome intellect, numerically expressed as an IQ of 152, proved to be an impediment to her Hollywood advancement.

“I mean, it’s really not helpful in my career,” explains the actress. “I just think it might have been a handicap actually.”

So much more impressive is Miss Beckinsale’s achievement. Though pushed down by the sheer weight of her mind, she has managed to walk tall all the way to stardom.

By why is intelligence a hindrance? Well, you see, those misogynist males feel threatened whenever a woman expresses an opinion of unwomanly astuteness and depth. They see such a woman as a castrating affront to their masculinity and a reminder of their own inadequacy. 

“When I said it has been a handicap in Hollywood,” continues Miss Beckinsale, “it’s PRECISELY because being female AND having an opinion often has to be quite carefully packaged so as not to be offensive…”

Since I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Miss Beckinsale, I can’t judge to what extent her Intelligence Quotient has been translated into actual intelligence. However, going by this interview and a few others I’ve scanned, the translation must have turned into Chinese whispers somewhere along the way.

Otherwise she would know that her lament misses a few intermediate links. First, she clearly equates IQ with intelligence, which is a common mistake.

First, IQ measures not intelligence but a potential for developing it. And any potential may or may not be realised. If it were otherwise, everyone with a sense of rhythm and a good ear for music would be performing in the Royal Festival Hall.

Second, IQ only measures the potential for developing quick, practical, problem-solving intelligence. Thus it may be a reliable predictor of practical success in life, especially in fields like finance, accounting, engineering, chess, possibly management.

But it doesn’t at all guarantee the value of its possessor’s opinions on any subject other than the one in which that proud person has achieved practical success. Thus I’m sure Miss Beckinsale can offer some useful insights into how to parlay good looks and some modest acting ability into achieving Hollywood stardom.

But her high IQ may not protect her from mouthing nothing but offensive woke platitudes on every other topic under the sun. That kind of protection can only ever come from concentrating one’s intelligence on serious matters, such as first causes and last things.

That would establish a vantage point from which one could then ponder derivative, quotidian issues. The reverse order, however, doesn’t work. Looking down from a high plateau, it’s possible to see everything in the valley below, but looking up from the valley won’t give a clear view of what’s happening on the plateau.

One-in-a-century geniuses apart, only those who dedicate their whole lives to studying and thinking can ever develop that panoramic view – whatever else, if anything, they may be doing on the side to put bread on the table. No shortcuts exist, and a high IQ certainly doesn’t provide one by itself.

The chess player Bobby Fischer, for example, had an IQ 30 points higher than Miss Beckinsale’s. Yet his opinions on anything other than chess ranged from idiotic to insane. For example, there wasn’t a conspiracy theory Bobby wouldn’t adopt as his own – even if some were mutually exclusive.

Though, or perhaps because, Miss Beckinsale read literature at Oxford, I doubt she has shown the kind of dedication I mentioned. That’s why I’m not surprised her male Hollywood colleagues shun her opinions.

Granted, she is mostly surrounded by men who themselves never rise above woke inanity. However, their feelings about Miss Beckinsale’s pronouncements may be akin to those of the Caliph Umar who allegedly ordered that the Great Library of Alexandria be burnt.

According to the apocryphal story, he explained that, if all those books said the same things as the Koran, they were superfluous. And if they said different things, they were dangerous.

Hollywood men already know every word in every woke mantra. Why would they want Miss Beckinsale to play it back to them? A quick dismissive reference to her pretty little head might save them from ennui.

That said, all this is pure conjecture on my part. I’m going by mere snippets of information gleaned from the Internet and her recent interviews.

For example, she recently said: “Don’t fuck with posh English girls.” I found that word grating – I mean ‘posh’ of course. No one who says ‘posh’ is posh; it’s a lazy half-word unbecoming anyone boasting a gigantic intellect.

Then, after a breakup with her lover, Miss Beckinsale says she “spent time in a clinic”, meaning her inner resources weren’t up to the task of handling love affairs. In her profession, that sounds like a heavier handicap than brains.

But she is committed to the task of destroying the possible results of such affairs. A few years ago, she appeared in a pro-abortion video, Republicans, Get in My Vagina. (In her younger days, Miss Beckinsale wasn’t shy about exposing the organ in question to camera lenses, while accusing men of objectivising women.)  

That alone is enough to suggest that she needn’t bother about being too clever by half. And she must talk to her publicist about the advisability of bragging about her IQ, while pretending to bemoan it. Thespians should avoid being laughed at – unless they appear in comedies.