Joseph Delaney - The Hole Truth

“I won’t argue with you there, Bill. I’ve put considerable time into the problem myself. They best I can say is that they have it coming. And they do. As long as man has been man, raw ability has never been allowed to be the regulating mechanism it should have been. There have always been ways for the inferior or mediocre to cheat. The weak have always combined to pull down the mighty.

“A human being can be an idiot in all other respects but still be clever enough to deceive gullible people into thinking he is something more, just because his ancestors were achievers. The feudal system, which dominated Europe for a thousand years, was built on that proposition, and every modern society is still controlled by a dynasty of some kind.

“What’s generally overlooked is that there are categories of stupidity just as there are of genius. Stupidity is no more universal than genius is. This is why Albert Einstein, who sometimes got lost on the way to his office, was still capable of working out mathematical problems nobody else could. Nobody’s good at everything and nobody’s bad at everything.

“We haven’t by any means developed the ultimate intelligence test. We’ve only just started, barely scratched the surface. And you know what I think? I think it’ll probably work out much different than we thought, for the very reasons I just mentioned. What we really have here, I suspect, is not so much an intelligence test, per se, but a practical way of putting all our round, square, triangular, trapezoidal and other shaped pegs into the proper holes.”

“Sounds like maybe at last we’ve got the hole truth,” Bradford replied, a noticeable slur in his voice. He wolfed down another slice of pizza and chased it with another mug of the high octane root beer.

Bryant winced when he saw that his next challenge was under construction; they’d come in Bradford’s car. Bradford stood six-four and weighed 260 pounds. Taking his keys away from him was going to be a chore unless.… It works in politics, he mused, then smiled broadly and said “You’re dry, Chuck, let me pour you another drink.”

Bradford held out his mug, and reaching for more food, failed to note that this one was more than half scotch.

You re a little bit brighter than me, Chuck, he said to himself, but until you develop a test for sneakiness you’re still gonna keep on losing. Suddenly, Bryant realized that here was man’s real need. Until a human being appeared who could indeed find a way to produce the truth, each time, every time for everybody, all other research into man’s behavior was a waste of time.

I’ll get him started on it the instant he sobers up, Bryant resolved.