A Nation of Simpletons

[Casper]

A partial explanation might be that much of the division was always present but excluded from discourse. When we (I) grew up there was not an outlet for the masses. Media consisted of three networks, several opinion magazines, and some extensive and often in-depth news magazines. IF you wanted to vent, you wrote the editor. And you had to be sufficiently confident in your literacy so as to not embarrass yourself in writing a letter to the editor in your local newspaper or news journal, which usually published your name. And if they thought your point stupid or ignorant, the letter was not selected for publication.

So otherwise you vented to friends during face-time, that's it.

No longer, with cable, talk radio, entertainment journalism, social media, texting, tweets, e-mails, cell phones, etc. every 13 year old or cranky old man can utter their 'opinion'.

A second explanation my be in the deterioration of respect for rational thought in primary and secondary education. In an era in which "feelings" are more important than fact or reasoning, it wouldn't be surprising to find that mindset having colonized education. If the current state of forensic debate is any indication, we have indoctrinated emotive subjectivism as our dominant method of discourse.

Last, there are other factors contributing to binary polarization. The zeitgeist of our age is identity politics, immutable differences of opposition that cannot be resolved through a good argument. The very existence of "the other" demands mistrust, if not hostility. There is no room for "the other" because its not longer an intellectual disagreement, its a disagreement based on your "privilege" or my "victimization".

So no, there is no cure.

Society would have to change dramatically to "cure" the issue. Sadly that is highly doubtful to happen without a painful reality check. Which is where we are headed...

 

[DifferentDrummr]

Do you deny democrats support sanctuary cities? Say yes.

Do you even know what a sanctuary city is?

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I disagree. People are not entitled to their own opinions; they are entitled to their own, informed opinions.

Nobody should be entitled to be ignorant.

OR:

"You might be entitled to your own opinion but you're not entitled to your own facts."

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Yay, open borders! More Brown Caravans! Hannity said Soros did it!:lamo

Prager! Mikey Savage! DeeeSOUZZZA!!! :2wave:

"Purveyors of 'YOUR OWN FACTS'".

Wasn't it Pizzarro who had molten gold poured down his throat by the Incas, or something like that?
Maybe I have the wrong name, but I seem to remember that once the natives discovered that he wasn't a god after all and that he was just after their gold and their women, they exacted some fitting consequences for his gold-lust.
Help me out with the proper name if I am wrong?

Does anyone else remember this footnote in history?

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

(Excellent post)

"So no, there is no cure."

There is absolutely a cure, but it's along the lines of "CANCER CURES SMOKING".

Remember that one?

 

[HumblePi]

In my lifetime I have had 3 "careers" and at least 24 jobs, ranging from janitor, cook and bottlewasher (literally) to Executive Officer and Assistant Attorney General. I consider myself intellectual, as I like to think about all kinds of things, including what I think and do, but, notwithstanding some posts to the contrary, not arrogant. But... I have noticed, even in myself, a creeping pattern of discourse that is both crude and dismissive. It's not just here on this forum, it is in our newspapers and magazines, on our televisions, and in our daily lives. Conversations are boiled down to "tweets" and text messages (email is so passe), or, if particularly loquacious, a brief exchange while waiting for our lattes at Starbucks. People don't interact with each other as fully as they did even a few decades ago. They get their information and form beliefs from headlines, not the articles.

I've noticed it particularly on weighty topics like climate change, global economics or the Mueller report. In lieu of in-depth study or reading, we post and respond with pithy points based upon cursory knowledge or beliefs. Again, it is not just on discussion forums like this. It seems to be everywhere. We have become a nation of simpletons. Complex thoughts and understanding are becoming rarer and rarer. Part of it is the deteriorization (that's deliberate, not a typo) of our education system, and the divisions between the haves and have nots - but it infests every strata of society. The apotheosis, in my view, is Donald Trump in the White House, the apex simpleton, and a cabinet full of singularly unqualified appointees. But again, it is not a political thing. We, as a society, have attention deficit in the worst way. We can't hold onto a line of thought to the end of a sentence, much less a paragraph, and even less a 448 page report. Our understanding of a topic has to be reduced to a bumper sticker, 288 characters, or a single double-spaced page with bullet points. In that environment bad actors get away with murder, and much worse.

I haven't determined whether our political divide is a symptom of this or merely an accelerant of the trend. Our beliefs are becoming binary: With me, agin' me; fascist or socialist; crackpot or nutjob. But there are big, complicated issues that we have to address both individually and as a nation - security (social, national and personal), environmental degradation, national and international economics, social justice - and soon we are going to be faced with even more, like a worldwide water shortage, dwindling fuel supplies, loss of natural resources and population growth. These are issues that are not amenable to bumper-sticker sized solutions or pithy programs. We need to emerge from our simpleton stupor, but the question is, how?

Being an intellectual, I'm surprised it's taken until April 2019 to have it concern you that this country is deeply and vehemently divided and it's only going to get worse. We're already fallen over the dam of decency and peaceful discourse. Neither side has an open mind or can see common sense. The lines have been drawn and if either feels that the other are going to suddenly have a light-bulb moment and say 'aha, you might be right about that', then you're dreaming. It is what it is and the animus is baked into the cake. It's up to those in Washington to change things and so far the Republican Congress is afraid to be true to their oaths and protect the Constitution and the country and would rather defend and protect Trump. Party over country? You bet.

 

[noonereal]

In lieu of in-depth study or reading, we post and respond with pithy points based upon cursory knowledge or beliefs.

How is this different than the past?

Conversations are boiled down to "tweets" and text messages (email is so passe), or, if particularly loquacious, a brief exchange while waiting for our lattes at Starbucks. People don't interact with each other as fully as they did even a few decades ago.

nonsense

people are more engaged than ever

we interact with way more people than in the past thanks to the internet and social media.

The binary nature of our beliefs have been harvested by politicians starting with Newt, taken to undreamed of heights by TRump for personal gain.

 

[<alt>doxygen]

"Purveyors of 'YOUR OWN FACTS'".

Wasn't it Pizzarro who had molten gold poured down his throat by the Incas, or something like that?
Maybe I have the wrong name, but I seem to remember that once the natives discovered that he wasn't a god after all and that he was just after their gold and their women, they exacted some fitting consequences for his gold-lust.
Help me out with the proper name if I am wrong?

Does anyone else remember this footnote in history?

Rings a bell, but my memory and the search engine god aren't helping.

What's really pathetic is that back when the internet was taking off, myself and a lot of the engineers I worked with thought what we were working on (high speed telecomm) would set the world free by allowing anyone to learn about anything they were interested in. I never thought it would give rise to a crop of jerks writing fake history, and a far bigger crop desperate to (in many cases willfully) consume that garbage.

 

[RobertU]

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

— William Butler Yeats, in 1919

His poem The Second Coming seemed to predict the rise of Hitler and seems just as ominous today as history repeats itself.

 

[Sweden]

There's nothing wrong with being curt and nasty to stupid comments. I know the issue. I know the nuance. Some uninformed uneducated backwoods jackass ain't gonna teach me anything. The only good that can come of such a person's dumbass pathetic cry for attention is me making fun of it.

No one, backwoods or frontwoods, has ever taught you anything. Least of all common civility.

 

[ecofarm]

No one, backwoods or frontwoods, has ever taught you anything. Least of all common civility.

OP laments the inability for political discussions to rise above the asinine. Alpha tables a strawman vehemently ("don't lie, liberals want open borders!!"). That's a derp.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Rings a bell, but my memory and the search engine god aren't helping.

What's really pathetic is that back when the internet was taking off, myself and a lot of the engineers I worked with thought what we were working on (high speed telecomm) would set the world free by allowing anyone to learn about anything they were interested in. I never thought it would give rise to a crop of jerks writing fake history, and a far bigger crop desperate to (in many cases willfully) consume that garbage.

Apologies for the long post, please humor me:

In December 1900 Reginald Fessenden and Lee deForest both leveraged modifications of wireless telegraph technologies first given rise by Guglielmo Marconi and Nikola Tesla and eventually it was Lee deForest's "AUDION" vacuum tube that made practical audio transmission successful in 1907.

By 1912 however, the Federal government recognized the havoc being wrought on the airwaves by unregulated radio stations, some of which even engaged in jamming competitors, transmitting on multiple frequencies or occupying so much bandwidth on their own frequency as to make practical transmission on neighboring frequencies impossible.

Furthermore, these unregulated and embryonic stations frequently engaged in spurious and often nonsensical broadcasts consisting of character assassination of competing station owners, dissemination of false news stories about their competition and libelous accusations, sometimes with the knowledge and blessings of the principal inventors.

And so the Radio Act of 1912 began to demand that all radio stations be licensed, but that still wasn't good enough because the 1912 laws only covered licensure and did little to regulate "standards of good practice". (more on that later)

The Federal Radio Commission (FRC) was created in 1926 and inaugurated in 1927, but strenuous objections to its authority came thick and fast because conservative elements were convinced that "the government wished to regulate and censor content". When a Kansas "surgeon", John R. Brinkley, began recommending over the airwaves, the implantation of slivers of goat testes in men's testicles for "sexual rejuvenation", the Federal Radio Commission denied his application for station license renewal in 1930.

Determined to be victorious, Brinkley simply began to beam his programs to the United States over 100,000 watt XER from Villa Acuna, Coah, Mexico instead. This was twice the power of any broadcast radio station save one experimental 500,000 watt station, WLW Cincinnati. Not to be outdone, Brinkley increased his power to 500,000 watts as well, as XERA, and used a curtain-array antenna to focus his signal northward.

THERE IS A POINT TO MY STORY and if you will bear with me just a little bit further, it will be revealed.

In 1931 Robert "Battling Bob" Shuler, a prominent and controversial evangelist minister, had HIS license revoked by the FRC in 1931 because of his continuous and libelous attacks on Los Angeles politicians and police officials, although some might argue that some of his blistering broadsides against the corrupt L.A. cops might be warranted.

For the sake of brevity, and to avoid sounding like a demagogue or pedant, please refer to "Broadcast regulatory actions" to observe how matters finally began to come to a head in the later 1930's.

Ultimately it came down to joint regulatory efforts by both the newly formed Federal Communications Commission AND industry groups like The National Association of Broadcasters, the latter of which finally settled on voluntary standards which "served the public interest", because "the public interest" had finally become the cornerstone on which FCC licensing hinged upon.

My point is, we appear to be undergoing similar chaotic battles with the internet, and while I am not recommending licensing internet content, it might be wise to take a close look at what passes for **** and what passes for genuine "Shinola" in service to the notion that the interest in "knowing **** from Shinola" might be a very good thing, both now and in the future.

Shinola



NAB Seal of Good Practice

 

[yankintx]

So you admit one is sane and the other not, but yet some how you equate them as turds.

People choose between two things they don't particularly like all the time. Why is only a problem when it comes to an election?

We often have to make choices between two turds, in and out of politics. Its called being stuck between a hard place and a rock, thats life.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

— William Butler Yeats, in 1919

His poem The Second Coming seemed to predict the rise of Hitler and seems just as ominous today as history repeats itself.

'The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.'

---Charles Bukowski

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Being an intellectual, I'm surprised it's taken until April 2019 to have it concern you that this country is deeply and vehemently divided and it's only going to get worse. We're already fallen over the dam of decency and peaceful discourse. Neither side has an open mind or can see common sense. The lines have been drawn and if either feels that the other are going to suddenly have a light-bulb moment and say 'aha, you might be right about that', then you're dreaming. It is what it is and the animus is baked into the cake. It's up to those in Washington to change things and so far the Republican Congress is afraid to be true to their oaths and protect the Constitution and the country and would rather defend and protect Trump. Party over country? You bet.

Whoa whoa whoa hold the phone a moment, Sparky.
NWRatCon only joined DP in March, and I hope he doesn't mind my saying this but I've known him for fifteen years. Trust me when I say he didn't just wake up in April 2019 with this revelation. :lamo

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

How is this different than the past?



nonsense

people are more engaged than ever

we interact with way more people than in the past thanks to the internet and social media.

The binary nature of our beliefs have been harvested by politicians starting with Newt, taken to undreamed of heights by TRump for personal gain.

This is by far not the first time a clever huckster has enthralled the masses.
The medium or mediums by which they do so are only incidental and only boil down to cost-price ratio of said elbows, eyeballs and butt cheeks, the latter of which sit on seats.

Trump's "three card monte" is but the latest evolution of examples found over hundreds of millennia.

He is but an Inca king who has convinced his people that he controls the solar eclipse.

 

[coco]

People are becoming dumber and dumber. The decline in human intelligence and interactions is due to the smart phone. Since the year 1998 Autism rates have increased 500%. Its because parents keep there babies occupied with a screen rather than actually interacting with them. They become lost in a never, never land for ever. A land they prefer over anything else.

 

[AlphaOmega]

Do you even know what a sanctuary city is?

Answer the question. Your dodge is noted.

 

[Vidi]

That speaks DIRECTLY to what my friend NWRatCon was talking about when he said:



And it's not JUST some minor glitch or localized anomaly. I am noticing it everywhere, in social media, on TV and radio, in print and in real life. I am witnessing a weapons grade laser focused knee-jerk reactionary form of dogma that is almost Tourettes-like, and I say that as someone who actually HAS Tourettes.

A shrill and over the top exaggerated accusation from Alpha Omega or EMNSeattle or any of several dozen members here is being duplicated all across the country, almost like a severe vocal tic, almost as if they can't control it.

I saw it start with the Tea Party, when I was covering the Tea Party Town Hall "2009 Summer of Healthcare Anger" and it exploded upward from there. Suddenly everybody who wasn't with them were either RINOs or socialists, and therefore the enemy.

It was a marionette show.

View attachment 67255684

Then it started to get much angrier.

View attachment 67255685

And that last one was 2009, now it's ten years later and it has ratcheted up by ten orders of magnitude.

And we don't have a shortage of over the top lunacy on the Left either:

View attachment 67255686

It seems that the extreme Left have lost the ability to even actually PRACTICE "liberalism", which by nature includes "openness to ideas".
Their failed liberalism has devolved into a Horseshoe arc all the way across the spectrum to a form of intellectual fascism. Indeed, it will not surprise me if ten years from now the most vocal of the campus kiddie trigger brigade all turn into the most hard-bitten ultra-right fascists we've ever seen. And of course, they will blame everyone but themselves, especially liberals. That's what happened in the Sixties, when hordes of failed socialists and ultra-left extremists, 180'd into what we now call "Neocons". But the neocons are now almost the moderates today, believe it or not.

But they're too busy being offended and triggered to even notice their backsliding anyway, and you cannot tell them a single thing, because either they will turn on you and attack you, or they will enlist what they think are their buddies in Antifa to do it for them.

I agree

Extremism begats extremism. We are becoming more and more tribal, us bs them. The extremes on both sides refuse to listen to reason.

But extremism has always existed.

In my opinion, the problem is the middle. Those reasonable people have become silent, disgusted by the rhetoric and the vitriol. The middle has tried to remove itself, wanting no part of the nonsense.

They have abdicated the debate and history is decided by those who show up.

 

[Vidi]

I disagree. People are not entitled to their own opinions; they are entitled to their own, informed opinions.

Nobody should be entitled to be ignorant.

I agree, but that’s not what we as a culture have decided.

Forget experts! Alex Jones says...! Forget experts! They’re part of the deep state! Forget experts! They’re part of the Patriarchy! Forget experts! They’re establishment shills!

It’s Hillary’s turn! Trump is pro-working man!

The dunderheads opinion now carries as much weight as the educated opinion. People who refuse to do the work of educating themselves expect their opinion to matter as much as the folks with PHDs.

And we allow it! Through social media, the web, every idiot has a podcast now.

It’s intellectual welfare.

 

[<alt>doxygen]

OP laments the inability for political discussions to rise above the asinine. Alpha tables a strawman vehemently ("don't lie, liberals want open borders!!"). That's a derp.

Alpha doesn't think it's a strawman. Fox News MoronMedia brainwashing.

I hope I'm not that bleepin' ignorant about what the right actually thinks.

 

[Vidi]

People are becoming dumber and dumber. The decline in human intelligence and interactions is due to the smart phone. Since the year 1998 Autism rates have increased 500%. Its because parents keep there babies occupied with a screen rather than actually interacting with them. They become lost in a never, never land for ever. A land they prefer over anything else.

Now there’s a direct link between iPads and autism?

 

[joko104]

Democracy faces a survival challenge on many fronts:

1. There no longer is a free and independent media and press. The Internet financially ruined the press and media. As a result, they were bought out by half a dozen super rich corporations and globalists who use them solely for their PR propaganda outlets - and do not hesitate to incessantly lie in that propaganda. Voters can not vote intelligently when the majority of their information is just globalist corporate propaganda.

2. The education system ceased teaching civics and history because neither are on the required testing. Simply put, people are stupid about government, the USA, and world history.

3. In the past, there were literacy tests and additional safeguards. For example, Senators were not elected by popular vote but rather selected by legislatures. It should have stayed that way.

4. The Democratic Party has evolved the political system to a system of bribery - promising free stuff when in fact nothing is free - and convinced people "the government" pays for free stuff when in fact we-the-people pay for free stuff in the form of massively growing national debt.

5. On economics, low education people do not grasp the significant of inflation caused by debt-spending.

6. People vote on what candidates say, not what candidates have and haven't done - because they don't even know. Thus, politicians who have been in office for years or decades can get away with promises during election time that they never once even proposed.

Elections now are decided by the lowest educated voters who know virtually nothing.

 

[joko104]

I wonder why the simpleton is President and the cerbral types like yourself are TDSing anonymoysly on the internet. Why do you think that is?

Only simpletons can see President Trump as unintelligent. Few people alive have had as much success in his goals in life as his life evolved than President Trump. On a personal level he is amazingly brilliant and obviously so.

For example:
When he wanted women, he did beauty contests.
When he wanted to be in the jet set, he had an airline.
When he wanted to be in the yachting world, he had a yacht.
When he wanted to be famous he became one of the most popular television celebrities.
When he wanted his name to be valuable for marketing, he made that happen.
He likes golf and the golfing crowd - so bought golf courses and country clubs around the world.
He is smart enough to never smoke cigarettes, use drugs or become a drunk - why his health at his age is a good as it is.
When he wanted to be president in his old age, he became president - despite EVERYONE saying it was IMPOSSIBLE.

NO ONE who becomes president is not extremely intelligent.

As a measure of PERSONAL success I can't think of a person alive more successful. While a person can debate his ethics or rant of business ventures that didn't work out, those are all just about MONEY - which a lot of people solely live for. He used money to obtain personal goals - not to just get more money. That is intelligent, very intelligent. Most super rich are just addicts to getting more money, nothing else.

Contrast him to Bloomberg who claimed if Trump has just invested the money his father left him then Trump would have had more money. What that shows is Bloomberg is a fool because solely living to rack up more and more and more money is being an idiot. Trump is intelligent enough to have used his money for his personal goals and not just an endless money chase.

 

[NWRatCon]

A partial explanation might be that much of the division was always present but excluded from discourse.
....
No longer, with cable, talk radio, entertainment journalism, social media, texting, tweets, e-mails, cell phones, etc. every 13 year old or cranky old man can utter their 'opinion'.

I agree, and it comes with a level of anonymity and brazenness that would otherwise be "socially acceptable" in normal interactions. In my view, it comes in two forms: First, the anonymous "deplorables" (of whatever flavor) who couldn't get their letters to the editor published " if they thought your point stupid or ignorant". We used to call them "cranks"; now they are "thought leaders." There was a social filter that was applied to keep nuttier ideas from being disseminated, or given credence. Some of it was local (the guy at the end of the bar, the editor of the local paper, your neighbors and teachers), some of it was based upon communal information sources (TV Networks, National Magazines). In some instances, however, the opprobrium went too far (redneck! Hippie!) and suppressed even legitimate variations - "we don't serve your kind around here." Local police might even get in on the action (I had a friend who was beaten because he had long hair, and literally no other reason, and suffered a TBI) - what happens when cranks get power. But, in the main, there were social "norms" that reined in extreme behavior and public expression.

The second might be called "public anonymity" - I'm not sure the best choice of word here. Alex Jones, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and the like, express radically extremist views daily and nightly, and have an audience for it. They are brazen because there is little (although growing) pushback for their execrable expressions. They get ratings! But their audience members can remain largely anonymous. (I laugh because my twin brother claimed he "doesn't listen to Rush" as I could hear him playing in the background of a phone call.) Their views, however, often show up, unfiltered, on discussion boards, in conversations, and even in presidential tweetstorms.

A second explanation my be in the deterioration of respect for rational thought in primary and secondary education.

While I agree with your initial assertion regarding "deterioration of respect for rational thought in primary and secondary education" - I vehemently disagree with your conception of its cause (I recognize some code language here, intentional or not). You call it "emotive subjectivism" - which is a good enough phrase, but I think aimed at the wrong source.

I started a thread before on what I think is the primary cause of that problem (Is Ignorance of History a Strategy). It's not the "touchy-feelyness" in curricula about minorities, etc., rather I believe it is programmatic in the opposite direction. There is a deliberate effort to "dumb down" education being led by people who throw around words like "subjectivism" to hide their bigoted belief systems. (I'm not saying you're one of them, I'm just saying that is a word that is used to pursue this strategy). It has two components - starve the school system of resources; and inject their idiosyncratic views into curricula. It is behind the rejection of core history and science lessons and the teaching of ancillary experiences (e.g., Native Americans, slaves and former slaves, Chinese immigrants, Hispanics) that broaden understanding of the development of our culture in favor of the injections of viewpoint lessons like "creationism" in science classes; and recoding "the Civil War" as "the War between the States" or "The War of Northern Aggression". It includes the elimination of "enrichment" classes - like art and music, advanced education curricula (like international baccalaureate and "AP" classes) and after-school activities. Frankly, conservatives in numerous States have politicized education as a wedge issue and indoctrination opportunity.

The zeitgeist of our age is identity politics, immutable differences of opposition that cannot be resolved through a good argument. The very existence of "the other" demands mistrust, if not hostility. There is no room for "the other" because its not longer an intellectual disagreement, its a disagreement based on your "privilege" or my "victimization".

I agree, but warily. Certainly there is an effort to create "victimization" - often artificial or even deceptively - and ramp up hostility. "Otherization" is a tool that has been used by demagogues since demagoguery was invented. But the privilege/victim phraseology causes me pause, as it is another "code phrase" used by those very demagogues.