On Wed, 29 Sep 2004, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> To reiterate - the argument is not that all Americans are dolts, but that
> the US society has a larger share of dolts than comparable countries. That,
> however, does not mean that there are no smart people here.
>
> Point of clarification - I should not perhaps be saying that dolts are a
> "larger share of the US population" but rather that they are more salient in
> the US than in most other comparable countries which may or may not involve
> greater numerical shares. There are good reasons of that already identified
> by Alexis deTocqueville and boiling down to one word - populism - but that
> is another discussion.
On reflection, I regret getting sucked into this thread. As Carrol (with his usual tact and subtlety) noted, it's far from the most profound thread on LBO, because none of the major terms are defined in any agreed upon, rigorous way.
How do we identify dolts from nondolts? I tried bringing up obvious stuff like formal education and IQ performance, but Woj rejected those. How does Woj know there are so many dolts running around? Godlike omniscience?
Along the same lines, what is mediocrity? Sorry to sound like Socrates, but I'm just an ignorant social scientist; give me something I can measure that will allow me to test the claim that mediocrity is pervasive. (Hint: hand-waving and selective anecdotes on a mail list do not count as evidence.)
Until we deal with these basic questions, this discussion can't go anywhere. (And frankly, I don't have a good answer to these questions myself.)
Miles