Wednesday, May 16, 2018

Gerard Alexander: "Liberals, You're Not As Smart As You Think You Are"

Jeez, ya think?
   Anybody who needs to be told this simply isn't that bright. I mean, Christ, how much more obvious could it be? Alexander is pretty much right about pretty much all of this...though I'd quibble with the following:
It doesn’t help that our cultural mores are changing rapidly, and we rarely stop to consider this. Some liberals have gotten far out ahead of their fellow Americans but are nonetheless quick to criticize those who haven’t caught up with them.
"Liberals" (I'd say progressives...) aren't out ahead of the rest of us. Or not reliably, anyway. They just go somewhere else...and call wherever they went "ahead." "Progress" is whatever they more-or-less arbitrarily decide to accept. Sometimes that turns out to be actual progress--liberals were ahead of conservatives with respect to the treatment of homosexuals, for example. Other times, they move off in a random, sideways direction, as they've done in the case of transgenderism. Often, they've moved backwards, as in the case of free speech. Other times they'll make a move in the right direction...only to blow it by going to crazy extremes, as with Title IX madness.
  Only occasionally right...but never in doubt...

6 Comments:

Blogger Pete Mack said...

Not as smart as you think you are seems like good general advice, and not just for liberals. The Dunning Kruger effect is not specific to one political persuasion *cough Trump*

6:57 AM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Agreed.

Many/most people and many/most groups fall into it...but it seems to me to be almost the defining feature of contemporary progressivism. Perhaps it's a side-effect of dominating the cultural superstructure: almost everything you hear agrees with you.

Trump's off the scale, obviously. Who knows what to say about that guy?

7:13 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Naturally I am taking this quote out of context, but I like it.

“We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. There is nothing progressive about being pig-headed and refusing to admit a mistake." ~CS Lewis

9:56 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Naturally I am taking this quote out of context, but I like it.

“We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. There is nothing progressive about being pig-headed and refusing to admit a mistake." ~CS Lewis

10:01 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dear Philosoraptor --

I agree with your takes on many things, but you spend too much time getting incensed by views that are held by very few who would call themselves liberals. These views are goofy indeed, but they are outliers. The internet gives them a platform that makes them seem more numerous than they are.

3:57 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

I hope you're right Anon...but I fear you aren't.

I see this nonsense IRL. And back in paleo-PC times, one defense of them was "oh, they aren't really very numerous or influential."

We all laughed at the Antioch rules...then they became the law of the land at universities 20 years later...

The PCs transformed universities for the worse.

The neo-PCs do exist IRL...and progressives and progressive institutions generally refuse to stand up to them. They gain more and more ground, and they shift the orientation of the American left to a very great extent. My own rather conservative institution is now suggesting that faculty--and I'm not making this up--"reach out" to students before the semester starts to find out about their "gender" and "their pronouns." (LOL as if...)

I appreciate your take, Anon. I'm definitely not dismissing it out of hand. I wish you were right...but I fear that you're wrong. I really, really do.

10:30 PM  

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