fayfreethinkers.com

GOP Advantage: Stupid Is Easy. Smart Is Hard.

Excellent article best to read it here.

Two excerpts:

Smart is elitist, and elitism is, you know, bad. So we can’t elect smart people, and instead elect stupid people, because they connect with us, and they’re more fun to have a beer with, even when (they say) they’ve stopped drinking. Then we wonder why the government doesn’t work. Stupid? Do tell.

I mean, where else in the world is someone accused of academic excellence and high-minded pursuits? ...

Stupid is easy. Stupid lets you give clear and unambiguous answers to murky and complicated questions. Smart, on the other hand, requires dealing with reality.

Columnist William Kristol, a high priest of the religion of stupid, wrote of Saturday night’s whatever it was:

"Obama made no big mistakes. But his tendency to somewhat windy generalities meant he wasn’t particularly compelling. McCain, who went second, was crisp by contrast, and his anecdotes colorful."

Smart is boring. Stupid is much more “compelling,” i.e., entertaining and comforting.

Also:

"Let’s talk about moral issues. I’ve written in the past about how “moral clarity” is not clear at all. “Moral clarity” is based on bullshitting yourself; a refusal to weigh and analyze all facets of an issue.

Essentially, “moral clarity” is about bullshitting yourself. It’s about not dealing honestly and compassionately with all aspects of a moral issue. Instead, the “morally clear” begin with the position they want to take and work backward to justify it, scamming themselves and others when necessary to achieve the desired outcome. This twisted way of achieving “clarity” is founded in the dualistic thinking Glenn Greenwald writes about. This dualism assumes one side of an issue must be “good” and the other must be “bad.” Thus, in much anti-choice literature embryos can talk and women who choose abortions are either ignored or assumed to have evil or selfish motivations. But real-world moral issues often involve multiple “good” sides. It is actually quite rare for people and facts to so neatly sort themselves into “good” and “bad” boxes as the morally clear want to sort them. And by achieving “clarity” based on lies and false assumptions, the “clarifiers” actually create more pain and complication.

But, by gawd, “moral clarity” works great on television. The “morally clear” can look the camera in the eye and give decisive, sound-bite answers. People attempting to deal with reality have to explain things. They must fall back on nuance. Boooooooring."

LINK

I am sorry to say that I came to the same conclusion about the appeal of overly-simplistic solutions after watching the Saddleback Civic Forum last weekend.

Obama’s responses were thoughtful, deliberate, intelligent, and complex. McCain’s answers were crisp, clear, certain, and overly simplistic. To him, the only “wrong” appears to be a national security threat. He did not even come close to identifying the evil that exists on our own doorstep.

Although members of the audience were polite to both candidates, they seemed to prefer John McCain. I am convinced his overly simplistic answers were the reason. Why worry about Darfur, street crime, or child abuse, when you can wipe out all evil by winning the War in Iraq?

At the end of the forum, we were left with two entirely different views of the world. One is complex and real, the other is simplistic and imaginary. Obama’s world is harder to master because it is multi-dimensional, involves complicated relationships and judgments, and requires intelligent analysis and action. McCain’s world is easily contained in the palm of your hand (I could feel it). It is one-dimensional, simple to understand, and black and white.

After listening to McCain, it seems feasible to conclude that Osama bin Laden, Islamic extremists, and Vladimir Putin are responsible for all our problems (a declining economy, high energy costs, climate change, inaccessible health care, illegal immigration, terrorism, and warfare). Crank up the defense budget, destroy our enemies, and all will be well.

It is clear that John McCain has a limited perspective and vocabulary (fight, kill, destroy, win). This is not surprising since, by his own admission, he ranked 894th out of 899 at the Naval Academy and his grades were “barely passing.” Nevertheless, people like him because HE DOES NOT MAKE THEM THINK.