THE PLANK JANUARY 2, 2008
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Lee Harris at TCS Daily makes the case:
Today, no self-respecting conservative wants to be thought stupid, not even by the lunatics on the far left. Yet there are far worse things than looking stupid to others—and one of them is being conned by those who are far cleverer than we are.... The bell curve virtually guarantees that there will always be those who can pull the wool over the eyes of the rest of us, and if we once begin to listen to their spiel, then we find that before we know it we have been taken advantage of....
The stupid conservative, on the other hand, does not look for a higher authority than tradition itself. He is prepared to rest his case simply on traditional authority alone, without seeking to appeal to logic, or reason, or empirical data. For what reason gives, reason can take away....
In a world that absurdly overrates the advantage of sheer brain power, no one wants to be seen as a member in good standing of the stupid party. Yet stupidity has been and will always remain the best defense mechanism against the ordinary conman and the intellectual dreamer, just as Odysseus found that stuffing cotton in his ears was his best defense against beguiling but fatal song of the sirens.
I was originally going to conclude with some pithy jibe, but this seems to me an argument that really speaks for itself.
(via alicublog)
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10 comments
wow. How gumpish.
I've really never hear of stupidity as a DEFENSE against conmen...
- jblumenfeld
January 2, 2008 at 11:17am
I'll say this for this Harris guy - he's putting his money where his mouth is. He wants conservatives to be more stupid, and he's leading the way himself.
- benjamin81
January 2, 2008 at 11:28am
I kept looking for some Daily Show or Colbert Report connection...evidently this guy was for real? Whoa.
- cspencef
January 2, 2008 at 11:32am
Please please please let this be the Republican platform in '08.
- indyguy7484
January 2, 2008 at 11:54am
Hello? The "stupid party" is a quote. Look it up. You may disagree with this argument but it is a perfectly valid one.
- AlanK
January 2, 2008 at 12:14pm
I actually think there's a certain Burkean logic to what he's saying. In some (but not all) cases, stupid traditionalism is, in fact, preferable to the high-minded dreams of rationalist intellectuals. Of course, whether one ought to turn this sensible observation into a methodology for selecting the president is another question. One can prefer the political sensibilities of the first hundred names in the Boston phone book to those of the Harvard faculty without wanting one of those names to be picked at random to occupy the White House.
- Androscoggin
January 2, 2008 at 12:47pm
This is all the more reason to vote for Alan Keyes--the only candidate with Lincolnian stature from either party. Mark my words, Alan is on the way to a great victory in Iowa. I've heard through the grapevine, that to get Alan out of the way, Mitt Romney has offered him the Vice Presidency and a major league consulting contract--$2,000 per month! Go Alan! Go Mitt! Return this Great Christian Nation to Its Roots! No new Taxes. Double Gitmo! Praise Jesus! Go Mitt!!!!!!
- sabatia
January 2, 2008 at 1:43pm
Is actually possible for them to be stupider? I wouldn't have thought so.
- ReganaD
January 2, 2008 at 3:26pm
No, AlanK, this is not a perfectly valid argument. It is an argument that government change no policies even as the circumstances that those policies were originally designed to affect are transformed by time and a million other factors. Which is, well, stupid. But that's the point, isn't it?
- skipper2379
January 2, 2008 at 3:28pm
Lee Harris wrote: "The stupid conservative, on the other hand, does not look for a higher authority than tradition itself. He is prepared to rest his case simply on traditional authority alone, without seeking to appeal to logic, or reason, or empirical data. For what reason gives, reason can take away."
That something has been done by most people in the past is irrelevant to whether it should be done by one in the future. For example, we've had slavery and segregation in the past. Women haven't been allowed to vote in the past.
And that most people have believed X in the past irrelevant to whether I'm warranted in believing that X is true. Most people used to think that the earth was shaped like a pancake. Most people used to think the sun revolved around the earth. Most people used to think that a deity poofed the first two humans beings into existence. And I'm quite sure that none of those claims are true.
Androscoggin wrote: "In some (but not all) cases, stupid traditionalism is, in fact, preferable to the high-minded dreams of rationalist intellectuals."
What do you mean by "stupid traditionalism" and "the high-minded dreams of rationalist intellectuals?" And in what circumstances is the former preferable to the latter?
- David52194
January 2, 2008 at 4:19pm