Short and Sweet Blog

This thought occurred to me watching an interchange between David Letterman and Rachel Maddow.  What do progessives think the rest of us believe?  At the conclusion of his conservative and Fox News bashing  interview Dave furrows his brow, compliments Bill O’Reilly’s intelligence (finding him surprisingly capable verbally and logical in his reasoning I suppose) and addresses himself to O’Reilly’s true beliefs.  Says Dave, 

David Letterman

“I don’t think you can be as smart as he is and really believe what he believed [sic].”  [You can find a 5 minute excerpt from the Letterman interview of Rachel Maddow at the end of which David makes that statement at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84ujLJBJJ4g.]

What can Letterman mean when he essentially says that O”Reilly must be a liar or a fool but he must be a liar because he’s too smart to be a fool?  This suggests that he, David, is so smart that he has evaluated all the thought processes and experiences which support the expressed views of O’Reilly and similar people and concludes that they are simply wrong?  Not misguided, informed by experiences he as an exalted talk show comedian has not had or just ill informed but plainly and clearly wrong!!!  That’s a whole lot of arrogance in one man it seems to me but let’s examine.  

Returning to a favorite theme of this blog the issue is one of a conflict in worldviews.  Can a worldview be simply valid or invalid as Letterman believes?  Is there a proper worldview held by the super-intelligent and a different, and completely invalid, worldview held by everyone else?   

What do we know of worldviews which the highly intelligent deem too foolish to be held by a thinking person? Rather than attempting to investigate O’Reilly’s views directly I think it more enlightening to try to determine what the highly intelligent believe the that not so intelligent believe.  Some progressives have publicly addressed themselves to some of the elements of the worldviews held by the less intellectually lofty.  These being people they recognize as their political opponents but not as intellectual rivals.   

First there is New York Senator Chuck Schumer, an Ivy Leaguer and real smart guy.  He’s a lawyer and therefore extremely capable.  While being interviewed by the same Rachel Maddow interviewed by Letterman at the time of his O’Reilly comment, Schumer identified some of the ideas of his opponents as ideas which “worked so well for them” politically from the Reagan era until the 2006 elections.  Now, of course, with the ascendence of progressives and their agenda, Reagan’s ideas have rightfully been consigned to the dustbin of history.  Schumer describes these views to include the desire to “cut off the hands of the federal government” when it moves, to support traditional values, and to project a strong foreign policy (probably meaning maintaining a strong military).              

Schumer identifies these leftovers from the Reagan era as the “hard right” implying that they are both out of the mainstream and inflexible so.  Given this interview with Maddow, it is fair to say that Schumer believes at the very least, that his “hard right” opponents subscribe to outmoded and therefore invalid ideas.  These ideas are simply “over” in Schumer’s words.  By assigning no value to these supposedly wornout ideas, Schumer apparently advocates that we head full speed into a brave world of “new ideas.”  His countervailing “new ideas” are those which won the day in 2006 and 2008.  These ideas, the opposite of the ideas held by his opponents, are the idea of an expansive and activist federal government constrained by no principled limits as well as the idea of freedom from the outworn concepts of strong family bonds, personal responsibility and self reliance.  And as a capstone, Schumer would obviously trust our interests to a world of infinite trustworthiness in which trouble is only brought on by the existence of a strong US military.  Are his ideas demonstrably better than those of conservatives or the hated Republicans?  He, like Letterman, has not addressed why his worldview is intellectually superior but simply and loftily opines that it is so.  Is Schumer’s idea of rule from the apex of political power by Washington experts so clearly superior that it doesn’t even have to debate?  How has it worked out for other countries who have tried it?  How would our country look if everyone fully embraced the central tenets of subsidizing failure, taxing success, anything goes personal behavior, looking to government for moral instruction and international weakness?  Wow, he’s got a real imagination as to how this will be a good thing.  If his ideas are clearly superior I will give mine up but first let’s agree on some debating propositions to defend and have a debate.

Talk show host and one time controversial Sunday morning commentator Bill Maher (originator of the conclusion that Brazil “got off oil in the 70’s”)  believes that his opponents are stupid and must be brought into line one way or the other.  In a conversation about the “overuse” of the Senate fillibuster rule he once said that the rule must be discarded because 60% of Americans don’t agree on anything, “even evolution.”  A telling comment about his opponents and their worldviews.  By evolution I imagine he has in mind the idea that all life emerged from “non life” by a process of undirected natural selection.  I know, I’m taking liberties by characterizing his belief in evolution but I doubt he would dispute my characterization.  This is an important element of his worldview, I’m sure and it is a touchstone in his mind between the worthy and the unworthy.  I wonder whether he thinks that O’Reilly shares his views on evolution or does he disagree with Letterman about how smart Bill is?  As for the rest of us I think he’s pretty much convinced we’re all dumb.  What dummies we must be, though, to think that just because there is no conclusive evidence for how life and DNA came into being in the first place that one theory is so much better than the other that the dumb one just needs to be ignored.  No evidence to conclusively prove his understanding of the theory of evolution is necessary.  Yeah, that sort of thing is common in the history of science isn’t it?  Has a theory about the unknown past ever really been permanently and conclusively proven to be correct?  What’s important, I think he would tell you, is a good and powerful theory!!!  Clearly, Maher and his smart ilk just need to get over their squeamishness about allowing people a say in their own lives.  People taking responsibility for themselves is so last year’s news.  They’re just too stupid to live, properly.  Let’s go ahead and drag these Cretans kicking and screaming into the new national health care plan which will be so wonderful that they’ll wonder why they ever opposed it although if it’s opponents are “proven” right and it turns out that politically rationing healthcare is a terrible idea, it will be too late to change back.  As an interesting contrast to his views about government dragging people kicking and screaming into more government control of their lives, he also believes that conservatives favor using “government power” against anyone but white people.  Are all conservatives racists then?  While he claims to believe that not all Republicans are racists, given his view of conservative racism favoring the use of government power against non-whites he must certainly believe that most of them are in fact racist.  This opinion is further demonstrated by his view that “if you’re a racist you’re probably a Republican.”  Perhaps he finds that not all Republicans are conservative.  I guess in Maher’s view we can safely disregard the conservative point of view because they are so ignorant and racist that their worldview is invalid. 

Finally there is President Obama himself.  At least the President concedes that there are experiences and ideas which support worldviews, even if there are worldviews held by those who oppose him.  In 2008 candidate Obama spoke about a betrayal by government causing some of his perceived opponents to “cling” to their religion, their guns and their antipathy against those who aren’t like them.    Is he conceding by this observation the potential validity to his opponent’s worldviews.  I doubt it but maybe.  Let’s analyze what he had to say.  First how can a betrayal by government cause people to “hold on” to their religion?  I first observe that widespread, deep and heartfelt belief in a personally redemptive religion long predates even the existence of a strong government presence on this continent.  Therefore, it seems to me that the failures of government can not really be the cause of the worldview held by observant believers.  How about guns.  Guns, in Obama’s worldview, are tools of oppression even when held by people who have never been convicted of a crime and who are unlikely to commit crimes with them.  I agree with President Obama that it is possible for people to feel threatened by “strangers” and this may have an effect on their worldview regarding guns.  But what governmental betrayal would cause this?  Is it possible that this interest in guns and gun rights is at least partially caused by the federal government policy of nearly uncontrolled illegal immigration?  Perhaps it has to do with it’s poor enforcement of the criminal laws regarding drugs and gangs.  Is Mr. Obama now taking responsibility on behalf of the government for these betrayals and seeking to accommodate and protect the folks seeking to protect themselves?  Is he conceding that this betrayal by government has caused more legitimate interest in the right of citizens to own guns to protect themselves?  That would be news, wouldn’t it?  Do you think that this is what the president means, though?  Isn’t he really talking about his view that the racist tendency of conservatives, as described by Bill Maher, is causing people to arm themselves in an irrational backlash against a non-existent racial threat.   Finally, how about the government betrayal causing small town folks to feel antipathy towards others who don’t look like them?  What can this be caused by?  How could the government be involved?  Perhaps this one is about governmentally enforced policies perceived as “reverse racism” by political opponents.  Could this be the betrayal noted by the President as a cause of antipathy to the “other?”  What other government policy could he be talking about?  Isn’t it also possible that there are some people who are  afraid of “others” just because they have never had a chance to spend time with them or even people like them.  This, however, is a matter of human nature so it would apply naturally to all humans, even Bill Maher.  Government is not involved in this though, so it can’t be that.  The President may be right that a perceived betrayal by government has brought about portions of the worldviews of his ideological opponents, but I don’t think that he would agree with me that uncontrolled immigration or “reverse racism” or others of the policies he still advocates are the policies responsible for creating or hardening those views.  He won’t agree with this idea because this concept would not agree with his own worldview.    

I think we’d get a lot farther in this country if we would all just concede to each other that there are valid views on many sides of the issues.  Accepting this fact we can then make an effort to try to reach understanding of the views of all, their sources and how accommodation can be reached.  I know one thing, if we continue to seek to impose our will on other people through use of government force, we’re simply going to harden our opponents into enemies who will not rest until the ones they perceive as enemy are vanquished.   A very wise President once said that, “A nation divided against itself cannot stand.”  Let’s hope we can change.

This entry was posted on August 7, 2010 at 1:13 am and is filed under Clash of Worldviews, Political Economy. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.