Genes, Brains, and Human Potential The Science and Ideology of Intelligence

312 PROMOTING POTENTIAL

In contrast to the egalitarian hunter- gatherers, organ ization into so-
cial classes introduced inequalities in roles, rewards, and privileges. It
also restricted access to cultural tools, including what I have called sys-
tem dynamics. More simply, institutions enabled the power of a few over
the many. Class division also engendered the ideologies required to legiti-
mize such social structure. In that structure, subcultures emerged with
diff er ent interests and beliefs, and with contrasting conceptions of the
world and themselves. Instead of a harmonious co ali tion, social class
systems brought considerable distortion and fragmentation of global
cognition, with attendant frictions and confl icts.
Individuals in class socie ties, that is, do not share awareness and
engagement with key social pro cesses equally; the crucial po liti cal connect-
edness is diminished for many. Without that inclusiveness, development
and potential will be limited for some.
Putting it like that, I think, better defi nes the environment and explains
the origins of psychological diff erences more clearly. It is not a question
of nature or nurture and their relative contributions to a position on a
single ladder, but of place in a culture in an unequal, uneasy, co ali tion of
cultures. Accordingly, the prob lems of any par tic u lar class stem, not
from intrinsic properties of the class, but from the dynamics of the class
structure as a whole. Th is deeper perspective is now beginning to be
realized quite widely.
For example, it was hinted at by Bernice Lott in an article in the Ameri-
can Psychologist in 2012. “In the United States,” she said, “one is born
into a family that can be identifi ed as working class, middle class, or
affl uent— divisions that denote status and power, as defi ned by access to
resources.” Her article then “explores the relationships between social
class membership and a wide array of personal and social daily life expe-
riences.” It concludes with “a discussion of classism, which contributes
to diminished opportunities for low- income families.”^34
Moreover, the special report by the American Psychological Associa-
tion on SES (2006) refers to the “network of attitudes, beliefs, be hav iors,
and institutional practices that maintain and legitimize class- based
power diff erences that privilege middle- and higher- income groups at the
expense of the poor and working classes.” Or, as Frédérique Autin and
Fabrizio Butera put it, “Determinants of inequalities could be better ana-

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