[Previous entry: "Killing your way to election losses"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Heinz Kerry Apologizes to First Lady"]

10/21/2004 Archived Entry: "The Science of Idiocy"

Posted by steve @ 02:08 AM EST [Link]

SMART PEOPLE, STUPID CHOICES: (via The Shotgun) I missed this yesterday...well, I wasn't even online to miss it actually...but Paul Cella had an interesting review of a book that escaped by attention. It's Intellectual Morons: How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall for Stupid Ideas by Daniel J. Flynn.

Some of the subjects of Mr. Flynn's study are familiar enough, and have been exposed to the satisfaction of most reasoning men: Who still clings to the idea that Alger Hiss was innocent of espionage? What credibility does Noam Chomsky really have left after predicting a "silent genocide" of "3 or 4 million" when the U.S. overthrew the Taliban in Afghanistan? Other subjects, however, will be less familiar; and thus their exposure more shocking, and indeed, more valuable. Flynn even demonstrates that the great Paul Johnson, in a moment of weakness, endorsed the fabricated probity of one charlatan.

But what emerges as a central theme throughout this book is invincible loyalty, or frightful credulity, of many of the various charlatans' defenders. Chomsky, we learn, is the most cited writer on earth (according to one study). There is an Alger Hiss Professor of Social Studies at Bard College in New York. Rigoberta Menchu's thoroughly discredited autobiography is still assigned to undergraduates across the country as nonfiction. Men will go to their graves defending the indefensible.

Reminds me of university when I debated a guy who defended Communist China. I didn't even know defending ChiComs was a cause but he felt quite strongly about it. I still see him occasionally...he's still a loser.

Read on.