So many good thoughts and ideas here. Thank you, Susan and Jon. But I agree with David Gottfried. Many impactful writers, thinkers, scientists, community workers, social justice activists, and revolutionaries have been inspired and strengthened by faith. It is the curse of duality - we/they thinking - both secular and religion-based - and tribalism, self-centeredness, and zero-sum posturing etc, that lead to stupidity. Where the secular and spiritual coexist respectfully, there is peace and progress.
1) Although I have many problems with religion, and sometimes consider religion the biggest cause of murder in human history (The crusades, the belief that Jews were responsible for the bubonic plague, etc. etc. etc. ), I sharply disagree with the notion that religion ineluctably leads to stupidity. For example, I heartily recommend a perusal of Mary Mc Carthy's "Memories of a Catholic Girlhood." She received a staunchly Catholic education in her youth, and her education introduced her to rarified European literature and fine philosophy before puberty. She became one of the most important female intellectuals in mid 20th Century America. Similarly, one of the most brilliant and incisive politicians in mid 20th century America was a Catholic theologian, Senator Eugene J Mc Carthy, who had the balls to be the first candidate, in the 1968 pres election, to challenge LBJ on Vietnam.
2) Certain facets of the media are making us stupid and this dumbing down effect transpires whether the message is coming from the left or the right:
A) We increasingly communicate with images, and not with words, and this undermines our ability to think and use intellectual abstractions:
i) Toward the beginning of Gulf War One, the media showed us pictures of a crowd in Baghdad tearing down a statue of Sadaam. The commentators said that this proved that Sadaam was detested. However, this was the sort of journalism that makes us morons. There were about 100 people at that rally in which a statute of Sadaam was toppled. There are millions of people in Iraq. 100 people at a rally are not necessarily representative of the people of Iraq. However, pictures make us forget about such things and we rashly and wildly extrapolated from a picture of 100 people to the entire citizenry of Iraq. Hence, we were surprised when the insurgency against America picked up steam.
ii) Likewise, are policies become hysterical and unmoored when we react to pictures, sans any knowledge of history of the context in which that picture was taken, e.g., at the end of 1992, we saw pictures of people starving in Mogadishu. The US sent in troops to distribute food. In early 1993 we see pics of US troops attacked by Islamic madmen. We ran away from Mogadishu.
B) The narratives aired on the media become shallower and shallower because there are thousands of different things to view on the web.
This is the miserable dynamic created by the internet:
i) When you turn on your computer, you can choose among literally thousands of differnent things to view, read and listen to.
ii) Since each channel or website has so many competitors, each website feels obliged to GRAB YOUR ATTENTION AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLY AND TO NEVER LET UP IN THEIR RENDITION OF LOUD, HISTRIONIC BROADCASTING.
III) Consequently, the narratives, broadcast on "news" programs, are brash, brainless, simplistic, big on cheap scintillation, sound bites and never have any depth.
Example: Studies show that when TV news programs aired segments of a politician's speech, they tended to broadcast 25 uninterrupted seconds of a pol talking 50 years ago. Today, they broadcast, on average, 12 seconds of a pol's speech
As they say, that's the way the cookie crumbles, or the way our powers of cognition are constantly eroded.
Sadly, the true face of American exceptionalism is its anti-intellectualism. We have been meant to suffer the absurd, and even now, the absurder - the Former Guy, Abbott, DeSantis, Greene, Boebert, Gohmert, Jordan, Johnson, Carlson, etc., etc.
The best thing I've read all week. Thank you, and thanks also to Ms. Jacoby.
I don't, however, think that DeSantis and Abbott are less terrifying than Trump. Actually, they're both smarter, which makes them far more dangerous. Look at what Abbott has done lately with abortion law and immigration. He's itching to fill the prisons with women who have gotten abortions, and to build prisons along the Texas border that he'll fill with people whose only crime is to flee death squads in their own countries.
The stupidity is also there. In their cases, stupidity plays an instrumental role in their moral and leadership failings.
Thanks for great ruminating and writing. Somehow I think everything will work out.
So many good thoughts and ideas here. Thank you, Susan and Jon. But I agree with David Gottfried. Many impactful writers, thinkers, scientists, community workers, social justice activists, and revolutionaries have been inspired and strengthened by faith. It is the curse of duality - we/they thinking - both secular and religion-based - and tribalism, self-centeredness, and zero-sum posturing etc, that lead to stupidity. Where the secular and spiritual coexist respectfully, there is peace and progress.
Thank you for this stimulating piece.
A few comments and correctives may be in order:
1) Although I have many problems with religion, and sometimes consider religion the biggest cause of murder in human history (The crusades, the belief that Jews were responsible for the bubonic plague, etc. etc. etc. ), I sharply disagree with the notion that religion ineluctably leads to stupidity. For example, I heartily recommend a perusal of Mary Mc Carthy's "Memories of a Catholic Girlhood." She received a staunchly Catholic education in her youth, and her education introduced her to rarified European literature and fine philosophy before puberty. She became one of the most important female intellectuals in mid 20th Century America. Similarly, one of the most brilliant and incisive politicians in mid 20th century America was a Catholic theologian, Senator Eugene J Mc Carthy, who had the balls to be the first candidate, in the 1968 pres election, to challenge LBJ on Vietnam.
2) Certain facets of the media are making us stupid and this dumbing down effect transpires whether the message is coming from the left or the right:
A) We increasingly communicate with images, and not with words, and this undermines our ability to think and use intellectual abstractions:
i) Toward the beginning of Gulf War One, the media showed us pictures of a crowd in Baghdad tearing down a statue of Sadaam. The commentators said that this proved that Sadaam was detested. However, this was the sort of journalism that makes us morons. There were about 100 people at that rally in which a statute of Sadaam was toppled. There are millions of people in Iraq. 100 people at a rally are not necessarily representative of the people of Iraq. However, pictures make us forget about such things and we rashly and wildly extrapolated from a picture of 100 people to the entire citizenry of Iraq. Hence, we were surprised when the insurgency against America picked up steam.
ii) Likewise, are policies become hysterical and unmoored when we react to pictures, sans any knowledge of history of the context in which that picture was taken, e.g., at the end of 1992, we saw pictures of people starving in Mogadishu. The US sent in troops to distribute food. In early 1993 we see pics of US troops attacked by Islamic madmen. We ran away from Mogadishu.
B) The narratives aired on the media become shallower and shallower because there are thousands of different things to view on the web.
This is the miserable dynamic created by the internet:
i) When you turn on your computer, you can choose among literally thousands of differnent things to view, read and listen to.
ii) Since each channel or website has so many competitors, each website feels obliged to GRAB YOUR ATTENTION AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLY AND TO NEVER LET UP IN THEIR RENDITION OF LOUD, HISTRIONIC BROADCASTING.
III) Consequently, the narratives, broadcast on "news" programs, are brash, brainless, simplistic, big on cheap scintillation, sound bites and never have any depth.
Example: Studies show that when TV news programs aired segments of a politician's speech, they tended to broadcast 25 uninterrupted seconds of a pol talking 50 years ago. Today, they broadcast, on average, 12 seconds of a pol's speech
As they say, that's the way the cookie crumbles, or the way our powers of cognition are constantly eroded.
Sadly, the true face of American exceptionalism is its anti-intellectualism. We have been meant to suffer the absurd, and even now, the absurder - the Former Guy, Abbott, DeSantis, Greene, Boebert, Gohmert, Jordan, Johnson, Carlson, etc., etc.
for the record justice anthony kennedy may no longer be on the supreme court but he is still alive.
The best thing I've read all week. Thank you, and thanks also to Ms. Jacoby.
I don't, however, think that DeSantis and Abbott are less terrifying than Trump. Actually, they're both smarter, which makes them far more dangerous. Look at what Abbott has done lately with abortion law and immigration. He's itching to fill the prisons with women who have gotten abortions, and to build prisons along the Texas border that he'll fill with people whose only crime is to flee death squads in their own countries.
The stupidity is also there. In their cases, stupidity plays an instrumental role in their moral and leadership failings.