[extropy-chat] Enlightenment and the election

[J. Andrew Rogers]

On Nov 9, 2004, at 7:16 PM, Brent Neal wrote:
>  (11/9/04 17:41) J. Andrew Rogers <andrew at ceruleansystems.com> wrote:
>> There is no evidence in this particular election that the smart folks
>> preferentially voted any one way.  Most self-described big city 
>> liberals
>
> I would disagree. You're comparing apples and oranges. "big-city 
> liberal" does not equal "educated."  "Uneducated," however, does equal 
> a likely Bush voter as has been amply covered on most of the major 
> news sources.


My point was that big city liberals (and I use that as a descriptive 
rather than a pejorative) view themselves as very educated.  I agree 
that being an urban liberal does not equal "educated", by they very 
much perceive themselves as being exceptionally well-educated whether 
they actually are or not.  They bring up their superior education and 
intellectual capacity when ever they have to bring fly-over country 
into the conversation e.g. talking about politics.

I also do not equate schooling with education, though the naive might.  
There is no shortage of well-schooled ignoramuses and idiots out in the 
wild.  Yet I have met some shockingly well-educated people in the most 
unlikely of places and in the absence of formal education.  Really 
bright people are not all that common and they stand out anywhere, but 
I have met them in every kind of place imaginable -- give a bright mind 
access to books and you'll be surprised what they can do.

I've lived in some really shabby places and met some very interesting 
people.  I've known genuine po' white trailer trash with no education 
but who were obscenely well read thanks to the library, whose 
intelligence was blindingly obvious.  In another life outside the 
trailer park, these guys would have had PhDs and the respect of the 
establishment elite but that was not in their cards.  Or more often 
than not, they simply did not care to pursue it.  And usually the 
opinions of these guys are well-respected within their communities.  
The big city liberal believes they are intellectually superior to these 
guys because of where they live and how they look and where they went 
to school (if at all), but in a real battle of intelligence I know 
where I would put my money.

I am a Silicon Valley elitist, but I have lived in many parts of the 
country including Bush-voter country and I can become one of them with 
ease.  If you think these people are uneducated, fools, or idiots, you 
are sadly mistaken.  The media likes to paint them as such because the 
media is very much made up of the stereotypical big city liberal.  I 
gain little by defending them, but knowing them as well as I do I find 
it the height of arrogance, prejudice, and bigotry that their opinions 
and perspectives are automatically dismissed by the urban liberals on 
the presumption that these people are ignorant, stupid, and 
superstitious.  I live in a veritable haven of left-wing intellectuals 
and have for a decade or two, and all I've been able to conclude is 
that most of these folks have never lived outside their comfortable 
liberal Democrat enclaves and have a view of the rest of the world that 
is almost pure fiction.  I get along with the urban liberals just fine 
and blend as one of them with ease, but their shallowness on many 
issues is readily transparent to someone who has lived in a much more 
diverse set of societies and cultures.

I am not a Republican, but considering how unfairly and disrespectfully 
urban liberal Democrat culture treats everyone else in the country I am 
not surprised that people like Kerry, who is the epitome of the urban 
liberal left-wing intellectual, faired poorly in most parts of the 
country.  The people who voted for Bush are neither stupid nor 
ill-educated, and the perpetuation of that myth only hurts the 
Democrats, and really brings *their* intelligence and worldliness into 
question.

Given that the people who voted for Bush are neither stupid nor 
ill-educated nor uninformed nor even particularly more religious, an 
intelligent Kerry voter *should* be asking themselves why they came to 
a different conclusion.  That most don't suggests that there is plenty 
of less-than-brilliant voters for both parties.

cheers,

j. andrew rogers