Sqrl said:
You post an article that tears apart the very point you're trying to make. Interesting tactic.... Excerpt: ... To reiterate, people who subscribe to non-traditional ideas probably have above-average intellects, but that does not mean other smart people will like those ideas. This is a point often lost on liberals who work in universities or in the news media. They observe, usually correctly, that friends and acquaintances in their social circle are smarter than the average (and likely more conservative) people they encounter on the street. But too many elites see this correlation between smartness and liberalism as somehow a validation of their political views. They seem unaware that the wider world features plenty of intelligent people who are not professors or movie critics or government bureaucrats. Even among the nation’s smartest people, liberal elites could easily be in the minority politically, but different social circles keep them insulated from finding that out. The result is a convenient but damaging political meme that circulates among some people on the Left—the belief that their opponents simply can’t understand what makes for good policy. ... There is a certain devilish fun to contemplating the intelligence of liberals and conservatives, but it should have no effect on how we think about issues. Political debates would be better without it. |
Brilliant. A polite way of saying how I feel about the subject. The main problem with "economic liberalism" (hate to use a single term to define a loose group of people) is that, by their very nature, they believe that they're smarter than the average person. It's a core belief that most will deny but is absolutely mandatory for their belief system to work. After all, much of their political system is formed around the idea that they (the "intellectual elite") are far better equipped to tell you how to think and that it's their job to take care of the pathetic, mindless mases.
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