Fetish of Intelligence - How an Overvalued Concept Shapes Our Lives

Why are so many children today considered gifted? Why are tech managers and far-right influencers obsessed with intelligence? What makes the concept of intelligence so appealing?

Gisela Schmalz and Mario de la Piedra Walter discuss how "IQ" is used as an instrument of power and how "intelligence" is appropriated from the left, libertarians, and the right to advance goals in education, social, economic, and immigration policy. Moderated by Christian Dunker, the conversation reveals how IQ tests, ideologies, and artificial intelligence discourse narrow our perspective and exclude fundamental dimensions of human intelligence.

Today intelligence serves as a measure of value for both people and machines. In schools, politics, and the hype surrounding artificial intelligence, it is all about comparability. IQ is used to sort and eliminate people, thereby organizing society. In a world driven by efficiency, the concept of intelligence reduced to "IQ" becomes a political tool, a technological promise, and ultimately a fetish that shapes individual life paths and entire social structures. What could a humanistic concept of intelligence look like that encompasses the holistic potential of an individual?