Free Write: Work and Intelligence

10 September 2015

Thoughts on Mike Rose

Expo 1213 - What is Work?

Maddy Payne

While reading the introduction of Mike Rose's book, The Mind at Work, I began to realize how unfairly we judge those who perform physical labor and the types of connotations society places on the word intelligence.  The "blue collared" and "white-collared" employees complain about one another, whether it is being tired of looked down up or looking down upon those believed to be of lesser worth.  Intelligence is also a much debated term in the work force.  

Rose breaks down the definition into two parts.  First, cognition, which "refers to those mental processes involving perception, attention, memory, knowing, judging" (xx), all of which can be applied on a personal level.  Things like motives, values, and life goals are all developed and thought about through cognition.  Cognition is, I believe, what drives people to gain intelligence and achieve the goals, obtain the values, and compose the motives they may have.  Second, there is intelligence.  Like Rose said in his book, the Western definition of intelligence is basically the ability to learn and act, to apply knowledge and solve problems (xxi).  Intelligence nowadays has become something that people see as brain smarts.  Intelligence is seen as something that can be measured with an instrument, maybe an IQ test or an ACT score, but really, intelligence can be measured by so much more.  

What is intelligence...?