Idaho mass murder suspect another prime example of the fact that having a relatively high or even very high intellect is no guarantee of psychological fitness (sanity).  The subject is apparently a graduate student (PHD) in criminal justice  - the sort of studies that prepare one for a career in law enforcement. This and another recent series of incidents involving a Xiden administration official with unspecified gender (dresses and “self identifies” as “non-binary aka bisexual)  who stole luggage at least twice from travelers at airports (very EXPENSIVE  luggage which got him a couple of felony charges). That person holds more than one technical degree in a hard-science field so clearly is of higher intellect).

One need not look far into history to find equally disturbed people with prodigious intellect who have done similar heinous things – Ted Kaczynski ( The Unabomber), Ted Bundy (serial killer of college girls).

The reason I bring this up is many still have the mistaken notion that higher intellect denotes hi gher morality and stability of the personality. Not so.

Arthur Koestler wrote a book titled “Ghost in the Machine” in which he hypothesized that one of the problems with human beings is that higher cerebral activity/focus has the tendency to distort, not enhance clarity of perception . So even though people may have more marbles to play with, they are less able to utilize them than people with less marbles.- making them less valuable to/functional in society.

Many psychotherapists and researchers have found similar things – all that a higher intellect means at the end of the day is that the person has a higher POTENTIAL for doing either good or bad. Some people of higher intellect have been declared a sort of infallible priest class – never to be criticized or questioned as equals. This is absurd, especially when you take into account how troublesome so many of higher intellect have been throughout history.

Responsible psychologists evaluate a person’s intelligence based not only on intelligence quotient (intellect: the ability to think/reason in complex terms) but also in their ability to integrate their various capabilities into useful (positive) avenues (not violent crime).