Not As Smart As I Think I Am?

Gerard Alexander, a professor of political science at University of Virginia, published an article in today's NYT entitled: Liberals, You’re Not as Smart as You Think You Are.  I can easily believe that, especially when I get caught in the self-referential loop of thinking that I'm not as smart as I think I am.  I am a liberal, at least compared to today's conservatives, of course, but rather than wrestle with the implied endless loop, let me just consider other liberals.  I know a lot of them, and many are not as smart as they think they are.  Actually, quite a few aren't very smart at all.

 It's not exactly a logical corollary, but should I conclude that conservatives are not as stupid as I they they are?  Or that some of them are smart?  Well, that hasn't been my experience, but the laws of probability would seem to disagree.  I'm talking about the die-hard Trumpophiles here, not the so-called conservatives in the never Trump camp.

 Prof. Alexander, who might be that elusive smart conservative, argues that liberals are doing a lot of self-defeating things that will cause Trump to be re-elected.  Heaven forfend, but he has some good points.  He argues that liberals dominate the entertainment industry, significant portions of the media, and academia, and that makes them think they are more powerful than they are.
Liberals often don’t realize how provocative or inflammatory they can be. In exercising their power, they regularly not only persuade and attract but also annoy and repel.
In fact, liberals may be more effective at causing resentment than in getting people to come their way.
That's easy to believe, but have you listened to Donald Trump or Sean Hannity?  They can be pretty effective and causing offense too.
Liberals are trapped in a self-reinforcing cycle. When they use their positions in American culture to lecture, judge and disdain, they push more people into an opposing coalition that liberals are increasingly prone to think of as deplorable. That only validates their own worst prejudices about the other America.
I recommend his article, even though I don't agree with everything he says.

 In any case, my beef with today's conservatives is that they are owned, body and soul, by powerful financial interests, mostly thanks to Citizens United, one of the greatest blows to the Republic in many decades.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anti-Libertarian: re-post

The most pointed critique of social security and liberalism in general is the libertarian critique. The problem with libertarians, for a liberal, is that we have too much in common. We both believe in individual rights, tolerance of individual differences, and dislike government prescription of religion. The basic difference, it seems to me, is the different answers we give to Cain's (with thanks to the Captain - my original version had the corpse asking the question!) famous question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That's not really my basic bitch against the libertarians though. My real complaint is the same as my complaint against most religion - its premise is a fraud. For those who can't stand to wait for the punchline, I believe that trying to implement libertarian principles leads to tyranny or social disintegration. Demonstrating that takes some historical (and pre-historical) context. For all but the last 15,000 or so of the 100,000 years the human spec...
Read more

Uneasy Lies The Head

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ........... Shakespeare Henry IV, Part II. So it is with us and our slightly distant primate cousins , so it seems. A 9-year study of wild baboons in Kenya by Princeton University and the Institute of Primate Research may turn conventional assumptions of alphas males upside down. The study found that alpha males have high testosterone levels, which allows them to dominate other baboons, get access to more food, and attract better mates. This is expected. Surprisingly, though, the alpha males also have high levels of stress hormone glucocorticoid, which scientists measured from their feces samples. In fact, the stress of alpha baboons was on par with low-ranking baboons. The convention wisdom is that access to food and females provides life security and thus less stress for dominant males. Conversely, weak males who are constantly threatened by starvation and physical violence from stronger males are thought to be more stressed. The st...
Read more

We Call it Soccer

The US played its best, and maybe only good game of World Cup, but lost thanks to brilliant goalkeeping by the Swedish keeper and the bizarre method soccer uses to settle ties when three US stars could not put the ball on frame from the 12 yard spot.  At the end it came down to a blocked shot that spun in by maybe a couple of centimeters. Well, that's football - too much like life.   Which brings me to a modest proposal.  Replace the thirty minute overtimes with as many 7-player 15 minute periods as needed to settle it.  Scoring should be much easier with fewer players.
Read more