Getting dumber: the reverse Flynn effect and the politics of denial

The decline of attention

Intelligence can recover. Flynn showed that IQs can rise dramatically within a single generation, which means they are not fixed but habitual, the sum of what societies reward and neglect. We could grow cleverer again by restoring the habits that once built intellect: reading, conversation, discipline, and curiosity. But that would require re-valuing intelligence, not as a badge of elitism, but as a civic virtue.

Unfortunately, we are doing the opposite. We tell ourselves that all perspectives are equal, that knowledge is oppressive, that truth is plural. Under such conditions, intelligence looks almost subversive. Flynn's great contribution was to remind us that reason is fragile-that it can flourish only where culture honours it.

Before he died in 2020, Flynn warned that societies that stop exercising rational thought will lose it. Intelligence, he wrote, "is like a muscle: it must be exercised, or it will atrophy". We have been skipping mental gym and calling the barbell biased.

Civilisations, like individuals, can forget what made them strong, trading reflection for distraction, understanding for outrage, and wisdom for convenience. The tragedy is not that intelligence is fading but that it no longer commands respect. The question isn't whether the Flynn Effect is reversing; it's whether we care enough to notice.