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elfsThe other day I jokingly said, "It's not true that Herman Cain is particularly dumb. Intellectually, he's probably on par with Bill Clinton or Richard Nixon. It's just that we've all gotten so much smarter, Cain seems dumb compared to our dim memories of those guys."
The gist (and link) of the joke was the book Everything Bad Is Good For You, in which author Steven Johnson argues that as television has become fractured it has also become complicated. Starting with Hill Street Blues (SF geeks would argue Babylon 5 as a better starting point), television shows began to make demands of the viewers. We had to track more, and know more, and get smarter just to keep track. My mother complains that she can't understand movies anymore and doesn't go to them. She loved a good caper, but the intellectual demands of a modern caper film (like any of the Mission Impossible franchise, the later Bond movies, or, Gods help her, Inception) are far more than they were in the 1970s and earlier.
If we are much smarter than we used to be, if we can process that much more that much faster, then we're intellectually at the same problem point we are physically with respect to aristocracy. I can't remember if it was Charles Stross or Niamh @CrookedTimber who made the point that one of the reasons we have no respect for aristocracy is because they don't look like celebrity. Four centuries ago, the aristocracy were taller, and stronger, and smarter-- they had the luxuries of a high-calorie diet and good education. These days, we all have that.
Which made me realize that my joke was only half joking. Because, you know, if we really are all intellectually capable, if not necessarily desirous, of keeping up with the average presidential candidate, then there is now nothing except force & money separating those in power from those without.
No wonder the oligarchy is working as fast as it can to secure power. It has to. Because if it doesn't... well.
"Historically, a story about people inside impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending." -- Lemony Snicket. Snicket doesn't say for whom.
The gist (and link) of the joke was the book Everything Bad Is Good For You, in which author Steven Johnson argues that as television has become fractured it has also become complicated. Starting with Hill Street Blues (SF geeks would argue Babylon 5 as a better starting point), television shows began to make demands of the viewers. We had to track more, and know more, and get smarter just to keep track. My mother complains that she can't understand movies anymore and doesn't go to them. She loved a good caper, but the intellectual demands of a modern caper film (like any of the Mission Impossible franchise, the later Bond movies, or, Gods help her, Inception) are far more than they were in the 1970s and earlier.
If we are much smarter than we used to be, if we can process that much more that much faster, then we're intellectually at the same problem point we are physically with respect to aristocracy. I can't remember if it was Charles Stross or Niamh @CrookedTimber who made the point that one of the reasons we have no respect for aristocracy is because they don't look like celebrity. Four centuries ago, the aristocracy were taller, and stronger, and smarter-- they had the luxuries of a high-calorie diet and good education. These days, we all have that.
Which made me realize that my joke was only half joking. Because, you know, if we really are all intellectually capable, if not necessarily desirous, of keeping up with the average presidential candidate, then there is now nothing except force & money separating those in power from those without.
No wonder the oligarchy is working as fast as it can to secure power. It has to. Because if it doesn't... well.
"Historically, a story about people inside impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending." -- Lemony Snicket. Snicket doesn't say for whom.
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no subject
Date: 2011-11-05 02:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-05 05:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-05 06:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-05 06:48 pm (UTC)Perhaps (with regard to your _premise_) the complacent and privileged are floating in the middle? While the extremes are pulling away from them in either direction? Dunno. I suspect the privilieged are a mixture of smart people and middle people, without too many being truly dumb. Dunno.
- E
no subject
Date: 2011-11-05 04:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-05 11:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-07 01:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-07 01:33 am (UTC)I'm not sure I can agree with the premise - there are plenty of people living on calorie-dense but nutritionally crappy food in this country, with the resultant damage to health outcomes. And the quality of education likewise is pretty variable, even if the quantity most people get has gone up in the last 400 years. But sitting in a classroom does not an educated person make.