Ch. 11 - Public Life: Defining Dumbness Downward

Chris OConnor

Ch. 11 - Public Life: Defining Dumbness Downward

Please use this thread for discussing Chapter 11. Smile

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Robert Tulip · Experienced Joined: 04 Oct 2005 Posts: 134 Gender:

Robert Tulip · Experienced Joined: 04 Oct 2005 Posts: 134 Gender:

Hi Chris
This looks like a really good book from the reviews and discussion at http://www.amazon.com/dp/0375423745?tag=booktalk08-20&camp=15041&creat ive=373501&link_code=as3 I won't be able to get a copy in Australia for a few weeks, but will order it. However, not having read the book, I don't mind plunging fearlessly ahead with some comments on the themes as they are so important. Just tell me to get back in my box if I miss the point. I liked the title of this chapter, so here we go.

The thing that strikes me about the US from my antipodean perspective is that it suffers from a willingness to allow commercial interests to exploit instinctive desires which were functional for hunter-gatherer times but are rather disfunctional in a modern global world. Primitive societies benefit from increased fat and leisure, and from adrenalin buzzes and protective weaponry, so these are now delivered as mass commodities despite the observation that they are often harmful. The adrenal rush of horror movies may be exciting, but the price is a severe desensitisation. Some one once said to me that good things make us more sensitive, while bad things make us less sensitive. I agree with that. I get the impression that the horror industry needs to get steadily more horrific to deal with the desensitisation it has caused, so that a sensitive petal like me is completely grossed out by their obnoxious product like an overdose. My impression is that horror actually prevents people from engaging with ideas as it renders them suspiciously paranoid - dumb. There is money to be made in 'defining dumbness downward' and I suspect that this commercial syndrome has considerable way to go yet. Nobody ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American public.* The Matrix presents an archetype of this dumbness syndrome, plugged in like an Ipod...

*Some more quotes from HL Mencken
"It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office."
"The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots."
"The men the American public admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth. "
"The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind."
"The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office."
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. "

DWill · Intern Joined: 31 Jan 2008 Posts: 185 Gender:

I can get way further off the track than Robert Tulip. (I agree entirely about the horror industry, and at some point I wonder whether we'll have to discuss our absolutes about freedom of expression in the same context as some, such as Sam Harris, discuss the absolute about freedom of religious belief.) William F. Buckley, Jr. died yesterday. What this may have to do with the topic is that, whatever we might deplore about the man's role in creating the modern conservative movement, if we want to align ourselves with thoughtful public discourse, we may need to see certain ideological foes as brothers and sisters, in some sense. Buckley, I think, would be a candidate worthy of regard for the high level he attained in his own discourse. Whatever iterm is the opposite of dumbing down, seems to apply to him.

Ophelia · Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 9:17 am Post subject:

Hello Robert,

I agree with you that the titles of this book are appealing in themselves.
I see nothing wrong with reacting to the titles themselves before we read the book (I intend to read it too.)

First, of course what you write about politics and the American public applies to other countries.
Perhaps one question that can be raised is whether the Americann public is more gullible than the public in other countries, having for some reasons not lost as much faith in their leaders as we have. It seems that it takes something like a war that won't be won for opinion polls about the president to go down in the States. The function itself still brings a sort of aura to the person who is elected.

Chris OConnor · Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 3:40 am Post subject:

My book just arrived this afternoon from Amazon.com. Smile

lawrenceindestin · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 3:26 pm Post subject:

Ophelia and Robert, if you want to take a look at my BookTalk blog lawrenceindestin I explain in more depth how we got to "here" by want of government and organized religion. I'm not ready to address government in my essay but it is mostly driven by mindlessness. I call the world an insane asylum because the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results. Election? Nothing has changed in 7,000 years. Something else has to happen. That is what my blog is about. I hope you can check it out and leave a comment. Thanks, Lawrenceindestin

LanDroid · Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 3:57 pm Post subject:

This was another one of my favorite chapters - looks like it's also the reason she decided to write the book.


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