West Wing, Elitism and Knowing of What You Speak

Okay, you know I love "West Wing." I love the snappy back and forth among intelligent women and men and the rapid fire wisecracks.

But there are some things which have recurred and like a burr under the saddle and they do catch up with you; they fester and progress from a sore to an abscess.

One is the unabashed elitism, which, as far as I can remember, is very true of Washington and I presume is an accurate depiction of White House culture.  (Peggy Noonan and Dee Dee Myers consulted) In every scene in anyone's office, there are framed diplomas on the wal, as if having gone to Berkeley or Harvard is a qualificatin for working in the White House.  CJ the press secretary has them on her wall and when Amy goes to work for the President's wife, Abby, the first thing she does is to hang up her diplomas from Brown and Yale, and she mentions she went to those places when she makes her case to Abby for why Abby should trust her.  The Republican attorney who joins the White House staff rattles through her academic pedigree: Harvard undergrad, Yale Law. We are told repeatedly Sam went to Princeton and on and on.  

And President Bartlet tells Sam, "You are one of the great minds of your generation," when we have seen little evidence of that, beyond the fact he has gone to Princeton. So, I suppose, we must conclude that fact he went to Princeton makes him one of the great minds of his generation. 

In fact, Josh (Harvard undergrad, Yale Law) constantly loads his remarks with lots of statistics which sound impressive and they flow rapidly by, leaving the impression he knows what he's talking about, but if you know anything about those numbers, you know they are bogus--how they were derived, what they really prove are questionable. It's all so facile.

Listen to Toby explain why the U.S. government should not sign on to the treaty banning land mines:

It's Korea. Tabitha. There are 900,000 North Korean soldiers in the DMZ,

and the only

thing stopping them from walking into South Korea are 37,000 US troops,

and about a

million land mines along the border. We have said over and over that we

would be thrilled

to sign this treaty if we could have an exemption for South Korea and we

have been rebuffed.

Rebuffed... I say.

I don't know much about land mines or Korea, but I'm willing to bet those land mines are not the only thing stopping those 900,000 North Korean soldiers from crossing the DMZ.  

This sort of thing happens repeatedly as these people marshal their arguments based on data which they really have never stopped to critically examine.  

They all quote polls as if the were handed down from Heaven on stone tablets:

Here's Leo:

Not quite. Our report card for our first two weeks in office. The President's

approval has

gone from 61% during the transition-- when, I suppose, there's nothing to

approve-- to 49%

once there was. 47% see him as a strong leader-- a result of bungling the

Rooker nomination--

and African-American support, which basically elected him, has gone from 92

to 78. Finally,

if the election were held today, the President would be Chairman of the

Economics Department

at Phillips Andover Academy. Can anyone report anything good?

To be fair, there are some discussions about polls and how they can be manipulated, mostly by the deaf actress who plays a political pollster/operative. (There is some irony in the fact a deaf person is best at listening to the electorate.)  If you phrase the question just slightly differently, you can get an entirely different answer.

Of course, my problem with "West Wing" is not so much with "West Wing" as with the culture it so accurately depicts: People who have been told they are the best minds of their generation because they got into Harvard, who work very hard learning large quantities of data they do not know how to critically examine, use these lodes to intimidate others into thinking they know more than their opponents. 

It all reminds me of a remark my father once made at dinner. He was talking about a man who had testified at some Congressional hearing.  My father had lunch with him and discovered he was actually a physician although he had been testifying as a government employee of the Department of Labor.  Why,my father had asked him, did he stop being a physician to do the job he was doing as a physician? Why work in the administration of government programs to help employ older workers?  
"Well, I like to think I'm making a difference," the physician said, a very common reply from a federal employee. 
 "But you know medicine. You actually know something. Why would you want to spend you day debating with people when neither side of the debate knows anything, really?"

What my father  was saying is that economics, sociology, political science are not sciences. People have theories but there are no prospective, double blind, controlled studies. Everyone digs around for some studies, some data, which support whatever position they like.  But they don't really know anything.

It's not like the best minds of the generation are in the government, even at the White House. The best minds are in engineering, science, maybe commerce, where you can measure outcomes and test theories. The kid who goes to China, or Japan, who immerses himself in the culture, learns the language, he knows something. He's my pick for a "best mind" of his generation.

As much as I've come to love the characters on "West Wing," I'm constantly reminded, they have conviction, elegance of phrasing, passion, great wit and charm, but they are all using smoke and mirrors. The best thing about President Bartlet is he is the one who always reminds them of this.