Totally true that too many of these people live in their own disconnected world, but the result of this is not to make them think everyone else is as smart as them. Rather, their attitude is more like the attitude of Frederick Winslow Taylor to the workers whose every motion he wished to control, with a completely rigid separation of thinking from doing.

As Charles Murray has pointed out, in our modern meritocratic society, these people live their lives almost entirely surrounded by people just like them. In their experience, the “dumb kids” are the 89th-percentile freshmen who get C- grades in English Comp 101. So, they do think they’re smarter than most other people, but they don’t have any practical experience with ordinary people working ordinary jobs with other ordinary people. Their world view is grossly distorted — and this distortion is amplified by the fact that they’re often making decisions for the ordinary people, not for their successful peers.

Also, I don’t doubt for a second that Reed understands the value of hard work and the value of government policies that let hard work reap rewards, but plenty of people are on the left-hand side of the ability curve, and their hard work isn’t especially remunerative. Hard work gets them further than laziness, but they aren’t management material, they’re not good with finances, and they’re quite vulnerable to a bad turn of events. That doesn’t mean that bureaucratic welfare programs are the answer, but a simplistic “markets are good” stance tends to assume rational, competent actors, and many real people aren’t especially rational or competent, they don’t delay gratification, and they don’t realize what hit them when a chance accident means that they can’t work their manual labor job, and their savings dry up all too fast.

I have to defend Mr. Reed now.

The average person in the country has an IQ near 100. The average journalist has an IQ near 105-110. The average top-end commentariat in DC has an IQ near 125. 125 is well below the 140 that Mr. Reed suggests, but it’s close to 2 standard deviations above the norm, and near the 98th %ile. I’d give him his points, even if they’re mildly exaggerated.

Fact is that the worldview of someone with an IQ of 125 (Someone who is roughly as smart as most Harvard students) has a very different outlook on the world than someone with an IQ of 100 (College is really a bit too tough, unless I have stellar study habits, iron will, and a beer allergy).

Commentators are not the only groups that influence each other’s thinking, and valuing hard work is not rocket science.

Houston, for instance, has the highest percentage of folks in the country that believe that hard work is all it takes to do well for yourself. Oddly, it’s also the place in the country where it’s the most true.

I’m gonna repeat: The individuals, including poor stupid folks, in Houston think that all it takes is hard work — and in Houston, they’re mostly right.

Of course, Texas state government meets only part time every other year, the Texas governor is a mostly ceremonial post, Houston has no zoning, and Texans are mostly “leave me alone” types.

I’d suggest that Mr. Reed go to Houston and reconsider his critique of the Horatio Alger story.