Summary: Today a journalist explains that government workers are “America’s dumbest people.” It’s an episode from social media, the stages of our time on which people dance out their values and beliefs. These conversations provide a mirror in which we can see western society, and from which we can deduce the hidden forces molding our society.
A conversation about our polarized time
A good story starts with the action. AP: “Federal Government Suffers Massive Hacking Attack“. Next we turn for a reaction from a notable journalists on Twitter, a intelligent person whom I respect. It’s a trivial vignette, but telling about our time (and the 2nd such conversation I had this week on Twitter). He tweets the AP story with this framing…
“Dastardly Chinese discover identity of America’s dumbest people. So what are they going to do with this knowledge?”
This is a commonplace of our time — quite daft but stated as obvious fact even by intelligent, educated people. Much like belief that Bush Jr. is like Hitler, Obama is like Lenin, Blacks are inferior (or degenerates), or 97% of scientists believe that anthropogenic global warming will prove catastrophic by 2100 if not stopped. What happens when these people have their belief questioned?
My reply: “Is that a statement of tribal identity? Does it seem sensible or funny otherwise?” His reply…
“No and Yes But YMMV.” {Your mileage might vary”.}
Western culture had always had fractions with some characteristics of tribes. Religions, each with their own beliefs, difficult or impossible for outsiders to question (in the Eucharist does the host and wine really become Jesus’ body and blood?) Now we have new tribes, each with their own articles of faith which signal their allegiance — as resistant to logic and facts as medieval Christianity.
Lessons learned
Columnists chatter incessantly about “political polarization” — the different policy preferences of the two factions of the 1% who dominate our politics. But here we see the real polarization: the fragmentation of society into tribes with incompatible and immutable beliefs about the world. No surveys or quotations from the IPCC can dissuade a climate alarmist from his certainty that 97% of scientists believe in catastrophic climate change — or a left-winger about Bush Jr being somewhat like Hitler. Nor can facts or logic break the certainty of a right-winger that Obama is a Leninist (or Islamic, or a foreign usurper).
These tribal loyalties are held irrespective of intelligence and education. They keep us fragmented, and easy to rule.
Are government employees dumb?
It’s a core article of faith on the Right that government is ineffectual, its employees are some combination of corrupt, slothful, and dumb — and much of it (or all) should be transferred to the private sector or just closed down. Western history disproves much of this.
As for the casual bigotry of believing them “dumb”, what evidence supports this? I doubt most people saying that would last a week working in many government agencies dealing with the public, or in most of those doing technical work (or, to use a local government example, in a typical Child Protective Services Office). But these people seldom tell us which Federal workers are “dumb”. It’s an odd thing to say, since Federal employees are better educated than Americans in the private sector.
Perhaps these people would point to the Federal government’s law enforcement agencies and the military? Park rangers, Foreign Service officers, and public health officers? Who are these dumb people?
My guess is that if forced they would point to the government’s corps of janitors and clerks as the “dumb” people. Are they “dumber” than their private sectors equivalents, or is this a statement of class superiority? If only we’d get these people to confront the “dumb” folks. The conversation might prove interesting.
It’s bigotry towards our fellow Americans. It keeps us fragmented and weak. It’s quite pleasing to the 1%.
What’s the larger game?
One of the major projects of the Right for generations has been to erode the legitimacy of the government and weaken our confidence in its ability to help us — destroying our most powerful tool for collective action. This requires erasing from our minds much of American history — such as the Erie Canal, Progressive-era trust-busting, the great Land Grant Universities, the New Deal, the Interstate Highway Program — and creating belief in well-developed faux history and faux economics.
I believe that many or most of our new tribes have such origins, created by elements of our dominant elites to advance their own interests. Our gullibility is their power.
For More Information
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about our confidence in America’s institutions, and especially these…
- America is the new Rome. Late Republican Rome (not the best of times).
- Undercutting people’s trust in the Republic: another step to destroying the Republic.
- Learning not to trust each other in America, and not to trust America.
- Gallup warns us to prepare for fascism!
