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Interesting comment on telly this morning. Using the McCain funeral as a view of the ‘intellectual elites’ in seeming shock at the rise of the likes of the Orange Booby and his followers’ ascendancy and similarities elsewhere in the world, it was suggested that the new dividing line in modern politics, superseding that between ‘left’ and ‘right’, is that between ‘intellect’ and ‘anti-intellectualism’...
I suppose another way to describe this might be ‘intelligent’ vs ‘stupid’.
The problem is, I suppose, there’s less intelligence available than there is stupidity.
Perhaps the intelligent need to think of better strategies to get the rest of the population back under control before the ‘Homer Simpson’ influence drags the project down to destruction.
The "intelligent" need to thank of better ways to make countries better for all and then things like Trump and Brexit wouldnt happen.
Do you not think that maybe Homer Simpson has been chosen to allow the very intelligent super-rich to do exactly what they want to do. They certainly appear to be managing to do exactly that currently.
I was with you right until I read ‘intelligent vs stupid’. If people have different views to yours, It doesn’t make them stupid.
The ‘intelligent’ are the ones who have caused seemingly never ending wars around the world.
I suppose another way to describe this might be ‘intelligent’ vs ‘stupid’.
As proven by the referendum on the EU ?
Obvious is obvious.
Obviously.
I don’t think it has anything to do with stupid. IMO it comes down to the information people are given. Plenyu of smart people vote for people or ideas I disagree with.
The problem if it is is a problem is the source of the information. Alex Jones is an old fashioned huckster, his predecessors had a soap box at speakers corner, now he can be global.
Times are a changing
I'm not sure that modern politics is any different now to historical politics. There have been, are and always will be some people who crave power and influence, irrespective of how 'intelligent' they may or may not be. Look to the media in all its forms for dumbing down the masses.
Thing is OP, I can also be an intellectual snob, so on this occasion, I shall provide you with the external validation that you are currently craving.
The problem with politics at the moment is the lack of credible alternatives.
USA had the choice of Trump or Hilary. I bet there was some hesitation and last minute dickering at those equally hideous choices. In fact, some mates in the US say that they didn't have anyone they could vote for and either didn't, or won't admit which way they jumped.
In this country you have May in the hotseat and an opposition who can't show people they would be better. Labour should be smashing the Tories to bits and they aren't.
Corbyn can't help make a tit of himself, and that's when his supporters rally round. Not realising that, at some point, a reset will be required. An apology. A difference. Not carry on in the same vein.
Thing is OP, I can also be an intellectual snob, so on this occasion, I shall provide you with the external validation that you are currently craving.
You seem to to be under the impression that my post is my opinion.
Part of the problem is that the world is more complex, and changing faster. Depending on how well you [think you] understand it, different things are obviously right or wrong. Plus, how you understand it depend on your source of information - again, depending on your viewpoint, social media and internet news can present unresearched opinion or truth that's broken free from the establishment. Overall, the world is less stable, which is both dangerous and, some say, an opportunity.
I was with you right until I read ‘intelligent vs stupid’. If people have different views to yours, It doesn’t make them stupid.
That's not what he's saying. I think Woppit's point is that in the past the debate was intelligent people on the left or right arguing over principles, citingJohn McCain in this instance. No doubt Woppit disagreed with McCain's politics.
However Trump isn't an intelligent republican, he's a stupid opportunist. So the point is that the axis has shifted to populism Vs intellectualism rather than left Vs right.
There's a lot of motivation in bigotry. It worked for Trump and it's likely how Boris will attempt to win with the Tories at the next GE. He's just setting it all up now hence the letterbox jokes. Bigot's feel strongly about their bigotry and tend to get out and vote, just look at Brexit 😆
I think the problem is that the reign of the technocrats ('intellectuals') in the 90s and 00s brought only incremental change that didn't really impact most people in the way or the extent to which they hoped. This caused a lot of frustration and, from that, a rejection of the 'intellectual' way of going about politics. Just my thoughts.
I think it's fairly simple. The 'intellectuals' aka the 'liberal elite' took their power for granted and assumed elections and democracy no longer applied to them. The stupid people, led by populist opportunists proved them wrong. The only thing voters need to know is whether they are better or worse off than before. They are very good at that and will vote accordingly.
Its the internet, bruv. Hate vegetables? Simple google search will bring you to a website that has 100s of other people all agreeing that vegetables are a trap, construct of *whatever evil the website wants you to believe in* and it then becomes your main source of news.
People operate in bubles now. People don't try to understand why something has happened, they just want to be told they're right to hate it. This isn't about elites, it's about how we communicate ideas.
The first way to fight this is get rid of social media. It's used as a tool of the extremes to attack and destroy the lives of those they hate. There's no conversation on it anymore, just wars.
The first way to fight this is get rid of social media. It’s used as a tool of the extremes to attack and destroy the lives of those they hate. There’s no conversation on it anymore, just wars.
True.
Letter in FT in December 2016
Face it. PLU blew it for everyone but themselves
From Keith Craig, London SW7, UKSir, Your pages overflow with predictions of disaster brought on by the Brexit/Trump axis. Leaving aside the depressing and repetitive pointlessness of this mass guesswork, its underlying assumption — that things were better when People Like Us were in charge — is at best dubious, at worst delusional. Under PLU rule, we have two failed wars and the Middle East in flames, China expansionist, Europe enfeebled, America ineffective and Russia resurgent. At home, we have banking crises, stagnant median incomes, uncontrolled borders, record indebtedness, profiteering by the “professional” classes, and general social polarisation. This is the Eden from which the rude and licentious electorates have expelled us?
Face it. We FT readers had our decades in charge and we blew it for everyone but us. Time for us to do what we’ve been telling the rest of them to do for years, and suck it up. Or go forth and earn the respect that regains power.
Keith Craig, London SW7, UK
Talking about politics might make you feel intelligent but no matter how intelligent you happen to be it's actually an entirely futile discussion. Some might even call it stupid.
belfastflyer
....The first way to fight this is get rid of social media. It’s used as a tool of the extremes to attack and destroy the lives of those they hate. There’s no conversation on it anymore, just wars.
Wow, that would really be like turkeys voting for Xmas.
When the mass media is owned by a few billionaires, then the only messages we get are those that suit their purposes.
Social media is one alternative avenue - and that includes the like of this forum.
Banning it would be like banning the telephone because people used it for nefarious purposes, or banning public transport because etc etc...
Letter in FT in December 2016
Face it. PLU blew it for everyone but themselves
From Keith Craig, London SW7, UKSir, Your pages overflow with predictions of disaster brought on by the Brexit/Trump axis. Leaving aside the depressing and repetitive pointlessness of this mass guesswork, its underlying assumption — that things were better when People Like Us were in charge — is at best dubious, at worst delusional. Under PLU rule, we have two failed wars and the Middle East in flames, China expansionist, Europe enfeebled, America ineffective and Russia resurgent. At home, we have banking crises, stagnant median incomes, uncontrolled borders, record indebtedness, profiteering by the “professional” classes, and general social polarisation. This is the Eden from which the rude and licentious electorates have expelled us?
Face it. We FT readers had our decades in charge and we blew it for everyone but us. Time for us to do what we’ve been telling the rest of them to do for years, and suck it up. Or go forth and earn the respect that regains power.
Keith Craig, London SW7, UK
Whats Keith Craig suggesting? That if we had populist rule, that we'd be building an armada of destroyers and keeping an expansionist China in check? And that wouldn't be another failed military intervention, how?
It is a countries lowest common denominators that define the political direction of a country, those countries where the masses do not care for the rule of law are corrupt from the bottom up because they do not hold their politicians to account for their corruption. Our lowest common denominators, do not and have repeatedly failed to truly hold politicians to any kind of account for societal issues in the west. Poor wages and working conditions for the working classes? Let's vote aspirationally for two decades, then blame foreigners when it all goes wrong - instead of pushing for better working conditions and pay. I take issue with the idea that people like Bojo, John Bolton, Mattis, Bannon and Le Pen are somehow anti-intellectual, they are intellectuals - they are just exploiting the emotions of the masses in a different manner, and the masses cannot see that. Can you think of any populists, who have ever, truly had their countries people at heart? I can't.
They have also failed to appreciate that they now live in a world where they have to share the fruits of capitalism with foreigners, that the rest of the world has caught up with them and that their living standards will drop regardless of immigration.
We need to stop treating them like children, stop telling them what they want to hear and start making them confront the world in which they now live.
It's slow hard won grinding progress, agreements and rule based systems vs easy, strong man, whim satisfying politics. Complicated vs simple. Some would say that the less you know, the more the simple political message works… and then suggest that's down to "stupidity"… but I don't think it's that clear cut at all. A lot of it is unwillingness to look at trade offs, and to only look at issues from one angle. Some blame social media, some blame newspapers and TV, some blame education… you can be sure that there is no single cause, or silver bullet.
The real battle is about "liberal" vs "looking after our own", and it's obvious who's losing. Painting the battle as the intelligent vs the unintelligent, is futile.
The real battle is about “liberal” vs “looking after our own”, and it’s obvious who’s losing. Painting the battle as the intelligent vs the unintelligent, is futile.
It's not even that, it's "Slow demise into mediocrity and stagnation" vs "Slightly quicker demise into mediocrity and stagnation". We can no more contain the rise of the east, than we can cheat death - and with that, will come rising food costs, lower growth and resource competition. The only way to mitigate some of that, for these people, is refocusing on education and creating a more equitable taxation system. Even then, that will just be a band aid.
They have to expect that being western, means they will no longer automatically have a better standard of living than the rest of the planet. That, in the grand scheme of things, their interests are actually fairly insignificant and their power ineffective, compared to the interests of the billions of other people competing with them. They will have to learn, that 70 million people do not have a chance in hell of standing up to the interests of the 1 billion of China - that the western world needs to form a bloc unless they want to become exploitable overseas foreign workers and be viewed with the kind of contempt that people from those countries currently have to suffer.
They will learn this the hard way though and to be honest, I for one can't wait for them to learn some humility.
Wow, that would really be like turkeys voting for Xmas.
When the mass media is owned by a few billionaires, then the only messages we get are those that suit their purposes.
Social media is one alternative avenue – and that includes the like of this forum.
Banning it would be like banning the telephone because people used it for nefarious purposes, or banning public transport because etc etc…
Message boards existed long before FB and twitter. The difference is that MBs aren't catch all services, they are specific topics that people have to sign up for.
Mass media owned by billionaires - lets include the british government and their infiltration of the BBC. But the whole media ownership is a good point. I'd argue SM has allowed the media giants free advertising and in return made it easier to spread their horse manure.
This could all be prevented if SM companies took responsibility for their users. Stop the fake accounts. Stop companies buying accounts from users. A proper verification process when signing up for them. Zero tolerance for fake news.
But they won't, too much money to be made making us all angry and too much effort to police content.
Politics wont improve while so many of the public are happy to be lead by idiotic sound bites and personalities on SM.
Perhaps the intelligent thing to do is steer entirely clear of politics, as it tends to attract a certain sort of people, who for the most part, have vested interests in militarized geopolitics and accruing profit, aided by corporate infrastructure in place to cover their backs.
Of course, there is the alternate view that they are sweetening the bitter pill that our planet can't sustain current population and consumption levels and are taking the necessary action, albeit still with healthy profits and investment in the very industries which speed the planet's decline.