Monthly Archives: July 2011

I knew the deficit debate was coming, but the sheer brutal stupidity of it is shocking. Still, if you do a search on “the deficit isn’t really a problem” you get thousands of hits on arguments that do make sense; here, here, and here . So there’s no shortage of people saying that the emperor has no clothes. What perpetuates stupidity? Or, rather, who has a vested interest in perpetuating stupidity?

One explanation is that the Republican Party, along with some very powerful and rich right-wing ideologues, are so well attuned to the media’s 24 hour hype-for-profit desperation that they can create a rhetorical mountain out of any molehill they might choose. The mainstream Democrats seem paralyzed by either political cowardice or a misguided pragmatism. Stupidity is the real third rail of U.S. politics.

Too much of it is too transparently intentional to be simple ignorance. Some people, apparently, really do believe that up is down, and that the moon is made of green cheese. At least part of the nonsense sector is simply cynical or cowardly, of course, but I think much of it is simple stupidity. This current wave of anti-intellectualism has lasted more than a generation. We’ve been dumbed down.

Stupidity reproduces itself wherever creationism is equated with evolutionary theory, or climate change reduced to an opinion, or Christians, contend that gay marriage will destroy marriage. We all make stupid decisions;the stupid sector, though, contends that knowledge and self-reflection, those processes that can counter stupidity, are either unnecessary or dangerous. Stupid is as stupid does.

I find this sentence, from the ACTA’s official blog, fascinating: “Our curricular study, www.whatwilltheylearn.com, documents that less than five percent of schools insist their students even study economics, let alone free markets.” This claim is a part of a larger argument that says, roughly, if you can’t directly prove something called “donor intent” then you can’t complain that private foundations and donors can have an ill effect on academia.

More specifically, Cary Nelson, president of the AAUP, can’t complain about the detrimental influence of the Koch brothers, and certainly can’t complain about the Kochs’ ongoing attempt to promote anti-scientific, and anti-intellectual ideas about everything from global warming to health care. The ACTA’s argument is simple. Just because the Kochs’ continually work at poisoning reasoned debate doesn’t mean they will try to do the same through targeted donations in academia.

It’s trustee truthfulness at it’s very best and it’s not too far from the specious logic– another favorite of the Koch brothers and their allies– that says that creationism and evolution are two “competing theories” that should be given equal time in the classroom. The tell-tale ideological marker is the phrase, “much less free markets.” I think it would be great if economics were taught more often and that would have to include discussions of markets. It would also debunk the notion of a “free market.”