Sometimes You're Just Wrong

#RantMode

Let’s stipulate: There is a distribution of cognitive ability among humans, and some individuals, whether through genetics, upbringing, a lack of personal drive (or, in reality, some combination of all three) fall on the low end of the curve.¹ They just aren’t smart, aren’t able to produce the same societal value as those further up the curve, and so they can’t compete in a meritocracy.

Trump is the avatar for the anti-intellectuals’ revenge. He is obviously a hollow, venal, emotionally stunted man-child, but that isn’t the point. Rather it’s the fact that he spurns everything that gives the bottom quartile fits: a devotion to seeking the truth, self-questioning, learning, openness to change, empathy, seeking challenge, intellectual curiosity, and c. & c. 

It is, simply put, the revenge of those petty, imbecilic bullies from high school whom everyone knew would wash up or wash out because they couldn’t compete in society. And of course it’s kind of embarrassing for all concerned, because this isn’t polite to say out loud, but let’s say it: These people can’t cut it. We know it. They know it. Ineeded, it is precisely because they know it that they resort to that classic mix of anti-intellectual, blame-deflecting, xenophobic behaviors. It is no more complex than the eons-old psychodrama of a fragile ego lashing out in self-defense, terrified that others will discover the weakness it is so anxious to conceal. At a societal scale, where masses of such individuals aggregate and communicate, this private psychodrama manifests as authoritarianism – those most desperate to conceal their inner weakness are the most vocal in support of the strongman.

Now, the cosmically sad thing – not to say the deeply ironic thing – is that liberal-Democratic policy is specifically designed to accomodate the inevitable distribution of abilities within society: to help those who cannot help themselves. Watching the bottom quartile buy in to the conservative-Republican sink-or-swim, hyperindividualistic, “up by your boostraps” worldview is doubly depressing, since they are just setting a bar they already struggle to clear completely out of reach. Their failure is virtually pre-ordained, and worse, that’s all to plan, resulting as it does in endless, cross-generational cycles of failure: A grievance engine that the plutocracy has harnessed for its own ends, i.e., consolidating and maintaining power.

And here’s the kicker: Whether someone ends up in the bottom quartile or the top quartile of ability isn’t really a question of blame or credit – which is the opposite of the conservative-Republican worldview. Rather, it’s largely a question of happenstance (genetic and environmental, not to mention the opportunities society facilitates or witholds from an individual, frequently based on the “classes” to which they belong).

And so it comes down to this: Sometimes people are just wrong. They don’t have a valid point. They don’t get it. They don’t have the cognitive tools to keep up, to provide value back to society. And that’s ok. It’s expected! They don’t have to suffer for it. But instead, they twist their lot in life into a list of grievances to throw back in the face of those who would try to help them.

It’s such a tragic, useless dynamic, ultimately reminiscent of the junky too self-involved to accept offers of help because of what it implies. But perhaps this analogy also suggests the solution: Interventions work when the junky admits he has a problem and recognizes that he can’t solve it alone; and more profoundly, that asking for and accepting help is not a sign of weakness but of strength. Functional societies need every individual to achieve this same insight.²