[lbo-talk] Treat Grownup Americans Like Grownups That They Are (Rationality of the Masses)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>[lbo-talk] Rationality of the Masses
>Jeffrey Fisher jeff.jfisher at gmail.com
>Wed Jun 8 12:16:57 PDT 2005
<snip>
>my only point was that some will have more trouble than others. but 
>otherwise, i think i'm saying what you were saying about sensibility 
>and rationality. that is, maybe it's rational at some level to trust 
>your parents or grandparents on things like religion.
>
>or are they so different, really? does one have to be a burkean 
>conservative to say such a thing? i don't think so. i have certainly 
>tossed my parents' and grandparents' religiosity (along with their 
>religion, which is not, i would say, the same thing). but it took a 
>long time to do, and not just because i was brainwashed, i don't 
>think. i think i was quite rational about it, even if i look back 
>now at things i used to think and shake my head in embarrassment, if 
>not disbelief. (yes, pun)
>
>what i'm on about is how we talk to people like we respect them 
>instead of like they're f-ing morons. and i don't think doug's 
>answer necessitates we do that. and i thought your post was 
>encouraging that.

It sounds to me like an ultimate disrespect to the intelligence of 
Americans to regard them as if they were children (which your analogy 
suggests), as the relation between them and their "leaders" isn't 
like that between children and their parents (except in the minds of 
pre-Lockean patriarchs).  Hell, even children hate being treated like 
children, if that means they are denied the right to know.

Treat grownup Americans like grownups that they are.  Most of what 
they do may be perfectly natural and rational, but what some of them 
have done -- and are still doing -- is not sensible at all.  Pointing 
out that a person is behaving foolishly -- like supporting a stupid 
war, signing up for the Army in the midst of one, etc. -- doesn't 
mean telling him that he is a congenital moron.  Stupid is as stupid 
does.
-- 
Yoshie

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