Cognitive selection fuels ideological sorting

Updated: 2026.09.08 7D ago 2 sources
Smart people tend to self‑select into ideologies that offer internally coherent explanations for major social puzzles; when one ideology (here, 'wokism') supplies such an account, it attracts elites and expertise, reinforcing its dominance. That selection effect matters independently of whether intelligence is innate: it shapes who makes policy, runs institutions, and sets cultural norms. — If ideological appeal is driven by cognitive selection, political strategy must focus on intellectual argumentation and institutional recruitment, not just messaging or culture-war mobilization.

Sources

How Republicans and Democrats see their own ideology – and their party’s
Beshay Sakla 2026.09.08 85% relevant
The article presents survey evidence that many Democrats and Republicans place themselves to the left or right of their party and that those who are relatively more liberal or conservative are also more critical of their party. That pattern concretely maps onto the existing idea that cognitive/selection processes concentrate ideologies within coalitions and that intra‑coalition sorting drives political dynamics.
Why We Need to Talk about the Right’s Stupidity Problem
2026.05.04 100% relevant
Nathan Cofnas’s argument that the left has a 'crushing intelligence advantage' among elites because wokism coherently follows from the equality thesis — and that conservatives must understand and correct why smart people prefer the left.
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