Ever notice how much people love talking about things they know next to nothing about?
The flip side of that coin is how people really do not enjoy talking about things they actually do know a lot about.
When you know something about a topic, you typically are aware of the uncertainties the other possible explanations. Ask a mechanic about the loss of power in your car, or the doctor about the pain in your leg and he will trudge through the most likely explanation but he'll then have to slog through the other possibilities, which is tedious, and somehow not pleasurable. Nobody likes uncertainty.
What people like is certainty and nobody is more certain than the man who does not really know, or does not appreciate the other possibilities.
Listen to the pleasure Rush Limbaugh takes in not knowing what he doesn't know. He is the definition of smug. The ultimate smugness of the ignoramus.
As Bertrand Russell once asked: Why is it the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubts?
Because being intelligent is to live with uncertainties, to entertain doubt, to ask more questions. What else? What am I missing?
The essence of Trump is his certainly, which begets smug, which begets electoral success.
It's the same appeal the clergy once had: We are certain in the face of uncertainty. You are paralyzed by doubt. We know. We can move boldly forward where angels fear to tread.
The flip side of that coin is how people really do not enjoy talking about things they actually do know a lot about.
When you know something about a topic, you typically are aware of the uncertainties the other possible explanations. Ask a mechanic about the loss of power in your car, or the doctor about the pain in your leg and he will trudge through the most likely explanation but he'll then have to slog through the other possibilities, which is tedious, and somehow not pleasurable. Nobody likes uncertainty.
What people like is certainty and nobody is more certain than the man who does not really know, or does not appreciate the other possibilities.
Listen to the pleasure Rush Limbaugh takes in not knowing what he doesn't know. He is the definition of smug. The ultimate smugness of the ignoramus.
As Bertrand Russell once asked: Why is it the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubts?
Because being intelligent is to live with uncertainties, to entertain doubt, to ask more questions. What else? What am I missing?
The essence of Trump is his certainly, which begets smug, which begets electoral success.
It's the same appeal the clergy once had: We are certain in the face of uncertainty. You are paralyzed by doubt. We know. We can move boldly forward where angels fear to tread.
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