Book Review: The Cult Of Smart

A landmark review of Freddie deBoer's 'The Cult Of Smart.' Part I gives a fair, generous summary of deBoer's socialist case: American education isn't actually declining; reform 'successes' (charters, No Child Left Behind) cook the books by selecting easy students or lowering standards; intelligence is mostly innate (twin/adoption/GWAS); the 'Cult of Smart' is the error of equating intelligence with human worth; a meta-class-war pits the 1% against deBoer's target, the credentialed 20%; the cure is to dismantle meritocracy and pursue equality of results. Part II is Scott's critique: meritocracy isn't a reified Society rewarding 'desert' but individuals not wanting to die of botched surgeries; the reform-doesn't-work case is weak (Success Academy, post-Katrina New Orleans — even if selection/teacher-tourism, it's something exciting we shouldn't ban, and deBoer will accept a far larger Marxist overhaul); the chapter on race contradicts the book's own logic (granting individual-IQ heritability while moralizing against group-level questions), prompting Scott's candid 'I am still freaking out about this, go away go away go away' passage on the expert surveys; and deBoer's anti-social-mobility argument proves too much (it would equally bless white supremacy). Part III is the famous 'school is child prison' tirade — the Burrito Test, bathroom passes, sleep deprivation, 'I would gladly do another four years of residency over another four years of high school' — raging that deBoer wants to shut the only escape (charters); Scott counters with harm reduction (give parents the $12-30k per pupil; experiment with how SHORT school can be) and 'Together, I believe we can end school.'

Quality 82 · Excellent. Excellent band, high. One of his best and most influential reviews: a model of steelmanning an ideological opponent, several sharp original critiques (meritocracy-as-revealed-preference, the proves-too-much mobility argument), the historically notable candid race/IQ passage, and the iconic, endlessly-quoted child-prison polemic. Clearly above the other census book reviews (Aborigines/Bauhaus/Christianity 78-79) and just above the Missing-Heritability synthesis (81); held below the 85+ curated landmarks and the Ivermectin standout (88) because it is fundamentally a responsive review rather than an original investigation.

Claude’s paradigm shift 58 · Moderate. Moderate, upper. The school-as-institution/'child prison' framing (Burrito Test) was a genuinely fresh and influential reframe at publication, and the meritocracy-isn't-desert and proves-too-much moves are sharp; much of the surrounding material engages deBoer's existing argument, keeping B notable rather than paradigm-defining.

Real-world impact 3 · Moderate. One of his best and most influential reviews — a model of steelmanning, with original critiques and the iconic, endlessly-quoted child-prison polemic, much-cited in the education/meritocracy debate. Influential within intellectual discourse, but conceptual with no material change — modest RWI.