There’s an informal, perhaps unspoken hierarchy in any business or government that has been prevalent in the last 50years where a supervisor hires someone dumber than themselves. As ppl move up the chain, the ppl below on the chart become less&less intelligent.
Democrats voted in 2 extraordinarily intelligent presidents. Bill Clinton&Barack Obama. Mr Clinton did something he shouldn’t have, but hardly a unique episode in presidential history, no worse than Newt&Calista, for example.
Barack Obama walked the straight&narrow&opened up affordable healthcare. But he was black.
Consequently GOP gave us GWB, then as devolution happens we got an unintelligent, psychopath.
Trump knows he wasn’t disciplined enough to get a proper education. He knows Obama is superior to him. He was told as a rich white male he ruled the world. He was forever ticked that NewYork City Brahmins found him uncouth&disgusting. He hated families like the Kennedys&the Clintons, but nothing made his blood boil more than Barack Obama. Obama was beautiful, brilliant&charming.
Perhaps the single most inappropriate person on the planet wants all of the wealthy contributing families erased from history. He wants Barack Obama’s name, well any person of color or a woman erased from history.
But, there needs to be safe guards in the future to protect public buildings, our art&culture from someone so willing to destroy everything due to venom&psychopathy.
"There’s an informal, perhaps unspoken hierarchy in any business or government that has been prevalent in the last 50years where a supervisor hires someone dumber than themselves. As ppl move up the chain, the ppl below on the chart become less&less intelligent."
May I add that I think this is one brilliant and concise synopsis!
This is good logic, and I would only caution against focusing too much on the pathological personalities who make it to the top of closed systems like capitalism.
The systemic nature of such a robber baron nation, I think needs equal attention with the astoundingly, empty personalities, and their heavily regressed childhood ego defenses.
Just adding what I would like to see added to your good points. Thanks for making them.
As a Speech-Language PATHOLOGIST, (all caps purposeful), I’ve found it extremely difficult to know that there are so many “functional illiterate” people that hold important positions throughout our society, especially those within our own communities!! I’m truly disturbed and disappointed by this fact! When it’s so easy to learn the basics of reading fundamentals! I assist adults all the time with their inability to read and write, as with using phonetically based strategies to learn how to use simple language forms for comprehension and written skills to become productive learners and performers in their lives and the lives of others🙏🏽. I do believe in “each one teach one” but how can the blind lead the blind…… we must work as a team, helping those in need of assistance in linguistic competency and overall communication skills, so that we all can compete on levels commensurate with those of our peers!💯✊🏾🙏🏽
Adage….. Critical Thinking is a higher level linguistic skill that can only be applied when literacy is intact! In order to “unpack” an idea, stated in word firm, you must initially understand what it is that you’ve read and understood, then task analyze that information in an exclamatory manner with which others may identify……
I tend to go back to Watergate, after which Roger Ailes recommended starting a television station devoted to only Republican views and news.
To me, Fox News and Sinclair broadcasting pander to and nurture illiteracy, decade after decade.
I believe Roger Ailes originally observed, “ When people watch television they don’t think.”
Here in Vermont a state Republican lawmaker just bought some rural radio stations and has turned them into Fox News mouthpieces. Rural isolation seems especially vulnerable to illiteracy.
We’ve been in academic decline for well over 2 decades. I have written extensively about this country’s literacy crisis where 21 percent of American adults are completely illiterate, with 54 percent reading below the 6th grade level.
I hope people concerned about Critical Thinking skills will start asking the people who can tell you why, but who are rarely asked—Educators.
Anti-intellectual is one thing. This seems more anti- facts (objective facts, not interpretations) and pro ignorance to maximize the ability for simple mind control of the simple. Reward it also. Many will not tolerate it, so it will create conflict. It is a means to an end. Build a united group for minority control. The new MAGA “DEI” Dumb Empty Ignorant. Uncle Donny Wants You!
[cracks open Richard Hofstadter's "Anti-intellectualism in American Life" for ... lost count of how many times]
Wikipedia:
"Hofstadter described anti-intellectualism as "resentment of the life of the mind, and those who are considered to represent it; and a disposition to constantly minimize the value of that life." He further described the term as a view that "intellectuals...are pretentious, conceited... and snobbish; and very likely immoral, dangerous, and subversive ... The plain sense of the common man is an altogether adequate substitute for, if not actually much superior to, formal knowledge and expertise."
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” Isaac Asimov
On a related note, I've spent the last half century or so listening to self-described 'leftists' (you know, the people who think liberals are every bit as bad or worse than fascists) tell us that 'the culture wars' are a political distraction, and the socialist message will sweep the nation if we (liberals and Democrats of various stripes) would just stop focusing on 'identity politics'.
With fascists, the bigotry is the whole point. They want a militarized, autocratic apartheid state. They're well on their way to accomplishing this.
But sure, the culture wars and identity politics are a distraction.
Watch what the fascists devote their time and energy and money to, and listen to what they say. Remarkably consistent. Because when it comes to their bigotry, they're sincere. They really mean it.
At the same time that some of these BAMFs are tightening their brains and their buttholes in maximum intellectual contraction, there are those of us who are willing to cut off everything that shackles us. The long term effects of what they’re trying to do is going to be a net zero. Just like you have to pull a slingshot or bow back to get the potential energy you need to launch a projectile forward, these fools will turn out to be one of the biggest gifts to consciousness we’ve seen in centuries as long as we don’t take them seriously. They are Scredians. Scredianity is their religion. They worship the Scredo. The central tenet of their religion is 0% responsibility. 100% projection. Once we can accept that, the whole game changes.
There’s an informal, perhaps unspoken hierarchy in any business or government that has been prevalent in the last 50years where a supervisor hires someone dumber than themselves. As ppl move up the chain, the ppl below on the chart become less&less intelligent.
Democrats voted in 2 extraordinarily intelligent presidents. Bill Clinton&Barack Obama. Mr Clinton did something he shouldn’t have, but hardly a unique episode in presidential history, no worse than Newt&Calista, for example.
Barack Obama walked the straight&narrow&opened up affordable healthcare. But he was black.
Consequently GOP gave us GWB, then as devolution happens we got an unintelligent, psychopath.
Trump knows he wasn’t disciplined enough to get a proper education. He knows Obama is superior to him. He was told as a rich white male he ruled the world. He was forever ticked that NewYork City Brahmins found him uncouth&disgusting. He hated families like the Kennedys&the Clintons, but nothing made his blood boil more than Barack Obama. Obama was beautiful, brilliant&charming.
Perhaps the single most inappropriate person on the planet wants all of the wealthy contributing families erased from history. He wants Barack Obama’s name, well any person of color or a woman erased from history.
But, there needs to be safe guards in the future to protect public buildings, our art&culture from someone so willing to destroy everything due to venom&psychopathy.
"There’s an informal, perhaps unspoken hierarchy in any business or government that has been prevalent in the last 50years where a supervisor hires someone dumber than themselves. As ppl move up the chain, the ppl below on the chart become less&less intelligent."
May I add that I think this is one brilliant and concise synopsis!
This is good logic, and I would only caution against focusing too much on the pathological personalities who make it to the top of closed systems like capitalism.
The systemic nature of such a robber baron nation, I think needs equal attention with the astoundingly, empty personalities, and their heavily regressed childhood ego defenses.
Just adding what I would like to see added to your good points. Thanks for making them.
As a Speech-Language PATHOLOGIST, (all caps purposeful), I’ve found it extremely difficult to know that there are so many “functional illiterate” people that hold important positions throughout our society, especially those within our own communities!! I’m truly disturbed and disappointed by this fact! When it’s so easy to learn the basics of reading fundamentals! I assist adults all the time with their inability to read and write, as with using phonetically based strategies to learn how to use simple language forms for comprehension and written skills to become productive learners and performers in their lives and the lives of others🙏🏽. I do believe in “each one teach one” but how can the blind lead the blind…… we must work as a team, helping those in need of assistance in linguistic competency and overall communication skills, so that we all can compete on levels commensurate with those of our peers!💯✊🏾🙏🏽
Adage….. Critical Thinking is a higher level linguistic skill that can only be applied when literacy is intact! In order to “unpack” an idea, stated in word firm, you must initially understand what it is that you’ve read and understood, then task analyze that information in an exclamatory manner with which others may identify……
That is such a good point!
I tend to go back to Watergate, after which Roger Ailes recommended starting a television station devoted to only Republican views and news.
To me, Fox News and Sinclair broadcasting pander to and nurture illiteracy, decade after decade.
I believe Roger Ailes originally observed, “ When people watch television they don’t think.”
Here in Vermont a state Republican lawmaker just bought some rural radio stations and has turned them into Fox News mouthpieces. Rural isolation seems especially vulnerable to illiteracy.
Thanks for your good writing.
We’ve been in academic decline for well over 2 decades. I have written extensively about this country’s literacy crisis where 21 percent of American adults are completely illiterate, with 54 percent reading below the 6th grade level.
I hope people concerned about Critical Thinking skills will start asking the people who can tell you why, but who are rarely asked—Educators.
https://open.substack.com/pub/leslyejoyallen/p/the-steps-called-books?r=1hfbq&utm_medium=ios
Anti-intellectual is one thing. This seems more anti- facts (objective facts, not interpretations) and pro ignorance to maximize the ability for simple mind control of the simple. Reward it also. Many will not tolerate it, so it will create conflict. It is a means to an end. Build a united group for minority control. The new MAGA “DEI” Dumb Empty Ignorant. Uncle Donny Wants You!
[cracks open Richard Hofstadter's "Anti-intellectualism in American Life" for ... lost count of how many times]
Wikipedia:
"Hofstadter described anti-intellectualism as "resentment of the life of the mind, and those who are considered to represent it; and a disposition to constantly minimize the value of that life." He further described the term as a view that "intellectuals...are pretentious, conceited... and snobbish; and very likely immoral, dangerous, and subversive ... The plain sense of the common man is an altogether adequate substitute for, if not actually much superior to, formal knowledge and expertise."
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” Isaac Asimov
On a related note, I've spent the last half century or so listening to self-described 'leftists' (you know, the people who think liberals are every bit as bad or worse than fascists) tell us that 'the culture wars' are a political distraction, and the socialist message will sweep the nation if we (liberals and Democrats of various stripes) would just stop focusing on 'identity politics'.
With fascists, the bigotry is the whole point. They want a militarized, autocratic apartheid state. They're well on their way to accomplishing this.
But sure, the culture wars and identity politics are a distraction.
Watch what the fascists devote their time and energy and money to, and listen to what they say. Remarkably consistent. Because when it comes to their bigotry, they're sincere. They really mean it.
At the same time that some of these BAMFs are tightening their brains and their buttholes in maximum intellectual contraction, there are those of us who are willing to cut off everything that shackles us. The long term effects of what they’re trying to do is going to be a net zero. Just like you have to pull a slingshot or bow back to get the potential energy you need to launch a projectile forward, these fools will turn out to be one of the biggest gifts to consciousness we’ve seen in centuries as long as we don’t take them seriously. They are Scredians. Scredianity is their religion. They worship the Scredo. The central tenet of their religion is 0% responsibility. 100% projection. Once we can accept that, the whole game changes.