[lbo-talk] Who are the Teabaggers? Call for assistance.

[Carrol Cox]

There is a vocabulary problem. "Stupid," "idiot," and a number of other
terms are used in everyday conversation more or less casually, without
much real reference to intelligence. "That was a stupid thing to
do/say/think." I suspect that even the best dictionaries don't catch up
some important senses of "intelligent/intelligence" as used in ordinary
conversation _or_ e-mail posts. I have often objected to using "stupid"
etc as evaluative terms, but almost every time I write a post I find it
necessary to suppress my first impulse to call someting or someone
stupid. It isn't so much an estimation of mental power or knowledge as
an expression of disapproval in general. I think Brad is making too much
of it in the present case.

There can be a problem of substance -- and I think often has been in
reference to actions of the Bush and now the Obama administrations. When
a writer describes such an action as "stupid," thhe term exhibits a deep
misunderstanding of differences of purpose. The actions are "stupid"
only if Bush & Obama share goals with us. They don't. We have to assume
the actions make sense, and the question then is how to understand the
goals that make sense of the actions.

Compare the slogan "Give Peace a Chance." That is really bad; it implies
that the fuckers in D.C. share the same GOALS as the protester, and that
they are slaughtering people to solve a real problem that they share
with the anti-war movement. But that of course is deeply delusional.
"All we are saying is give Peace a Chance" used to make me want to start
screaming. But probably the people so chanting don't _really_ think that
they and the murders Washington have the same purpose; it just sounds
nice to them. Something like that. And Brad by fhrowing fits about lbo
references to the stupidity of TPs is simply being unserious. It isn't
that big a deal. The TPs are neither potential allies nor (at the
present) a serious 'enemy.' They are merely silly and we have better
things to think about.

Carrol

Doug Henwood wrote:
> 
> On Apr 11, 2010, at 8:09 AM, brad bauerly wrote:
> 
> > I agree with the point but you will loose them with the message.  You
> > make the case that one group is intelligent while the other is a bunch
> > of idiots.
> 
> What word would you use to describe a group of people who think that
> Barack Obama is a socialist? "Idiot" is perhaps excessively condensed
> and crude, but "systematically and perhaps hopelessly deluded" might
> work.
> 
> Doug
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