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March 18, 2012
Anybody Got Any Good Crackpot Theories?Recall the Dunning-Kruger effect. In short, a person’s incompetence inhibits their ability to recognize his or her incompetence. The people who think they are the smartest are the dumbest, essentially, because they are blind to their stupidity. The people who think they know better know the least. And isn't it interesting that they are almost always the first to hurl the insult "you're stupid"? Anyway, I was reading about the police busting OWS people and closing Zuccotti Park today, and it occurred to me that there is a variation on the Dunning-Kruger effect that has to do with other forms of self-awareness. Several examples:
Because of the built-in assumption that everything about the self is fine, time spent fixing flaws naturally has to do with others. And flaws must be fixed. "I'm fine. That's understood. So lets take a look at the actions of others." They don't look at themselves objectively. They don't question their own motivations and actions. They take it as a given they are exemplars of only the finest qualities. Which leads me back to the question of why. Certainly Dunning-Kruger comes to mind, but there are many smart people among the ranks of the voluntarily blind. There is something relevant about the idea of "mental focus." If you're focused on the actions of others, it follows that you might not focus on your own. There is simple projection, attributing to others one's own unacknowledged bad traits, thoughts, or behaviors. And, of course, there is one of my favorites, working memory overload. A while back, I went to the comments section of an article in a British newspaper that was generating a lot of interest. There was a lot of back-and-forth, but one thing kept popping up over and over during the course of the debate--which went on for over 700 comments. (Note, this was a piece that appealed primarily to progressives, so the debate was mostly internecine.) Time and again the debate circled back to "after all, we are superior." It surprised me to see that stated so openly and aggressively and without shame. I saw a variation of that comment at least a dozen times. And it always seemed to follow some particularly hateful comment or point of view. Note that you never see the "after all, we are superior" sentiment expressed in conservative debates. That reminded me of something I posted on a comment board several years ago. The topic was Bruce Thornton's Embedded and Elitist Left: The Long March through Schools of Journalism. [Corrected: It wasn't a piece by Victor Davis Hanson as I initially indicated.] The first paragraph is from that article. But there is another dimension of the institutionalization of the left, one also illustrated by Schell – what Tom Wolfe famously called "radical chic," the use of leftist ideology as a fashion marker to signify one's elitist superiority to the bovine middle class befuddled by a false consciousness that keeps them from seeing the horrible oppression and injustice of America. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's all about survival and ego-protection. But maybe there is one more basic level, one last meta-level of understanding. I saw a scientist in some show talking about the sequestration of energy, if I'm phrasing it right. All life throughout history has had at its heart one purpose: gaining energy (presumably for reproduction). More specifically, he said that all behavior is an attempt to secure more of the energy that was initially released in the big bang. Interesting, that. Anybody got any other ideas? | Recent Comments
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Hobby Thread - Sept 7, 2024 [TRex]
Ace of Spades Pet Thread, September 7 Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Sept. 7 The "rules-based international order" vs. free speech? The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival Daily Tech News 7 September 2024 The Bric, The Brac, The Craic & All, Lets Call It An ONT TGIF Cafe The Week In Woke Dick Cheney Is Voting for Kamala Harris Search
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