Pen-Elayne on the Web

Your Stupid Minds! Stupid, Stupid!

Yes, long-time readers, I have addressed this topic before; see here. But bear with me, I'm pissed again. Via Maru Soze, I just read this article purporting to explain away Bush's popularity as attributable in large measure to "The Stupid Factor." Quoth Neal Starkman:

What, then, can account for so many people being so supportive of the president?

The answer, I'm afraid, is the factor that dare not speak its name. It's the factor that no one talks about. The pollsters don't ask it, the media don't report it, the voters don't discuss it.

I, however, will blare out its name so that at last people can address the issue and perhaps adopt strategies to overcome it.

It's the "Stupid factor," the S factor: Some people -- sometimes through no fault of their own -- are just not very bright.

Now, other than to puff up Neal Starkman, what's the bloody point of calling people stupid en masse? What on earth does this elitist crap accomplish? And by the way, that's complete bullshit that "the voters don't discuss it," unless Starkman doesn't count anyone in the blogosphere (or himself) as a voter. There's far too much feces-flinging going on when it comes to people calling other people stupid. I admit it, I've indulged in it myself sometimes (I'm ashamed to say how many posts came up when I did a search in my Blogger edit window on the word "stupid"). But I'm not above admitting there's something tastelessly dismissive about tagging a whole voting bloc as stupid just because they like someone you don't. That's why "the pollsters don't ask it" and "the media don't report it" (except of course Starkman and Hal Crowther and...). Because it's not true (Bush voters, besides not even being the popular majority, are no more a product of monolithic group-think than anyone else) and -- well, I'll blare it out so Starkman can perhaps adopt strategies to overcome it -- it makes you sound like an asshole.

Besides all that, like I said back in July, "It's one thing to observe that government/media propaganda is successful; it's another thing entirely to tell people taken in by it that they're dumb or intellectually challenged or lazy or whatever. They tend not to take kindly to insults, particularly ones couched in ivory-tower liberalese. Besides, smart people are duped all the time; I think it's rather in keeping with human nature to want to believe the best of others, particularly those who hold power over you." I see no reason at all to change that opinion.