Steve Sailer explains why Donald Trump
is simultaneously accused of stupidity due to his verbal simplicityeven as he
punctures the absurd pieties of the media Narrative:
Seven
hundred years ago an English friar named William of Ockham gave his name to the
traditional Western prejudice that the simplest feasible explanation is most likely
to be true.
Six and a half centuries later we went to the moon.
Lately, however, we haven’t really felt all that inclined to figure out how the world works. It’s more important to demonstrate our mastery of socially preferred locutions.
For example, one pressing public-policy question of the day is: What are the main causes of Muslim terrorism? Now, an Ockhamite might surmise that one useful answer is:
Muslims.
But the respectable answer in 2016 isn’t supposed to be anything that blunt. In particular, any acceptable explanation must include the six-syllable word “Islamophobia.”
Logically, Islamophobia sounds like it would be an effect of Islamic terrorism rather than a cause.
But logic hasn’t been the goal in 21st-century America. Status is. Repeating the word “Islamophobia” demonstrates that you have been to college, or at least that you watch talking heads on TV who have been to college.
And that’s what really counts.
In summary, Trump has been able to galvanize American politics by telling so many unfashionable truths because the reigning dogmas of our day are smart in form yet stupid in content.
Six and a half centuries later we went to the moon.
Lately, however, we haven’t really felt all that inclined to figure out how the world works. It’s more important to demonstrate our mastery of socially preferred locutions.
For example, one pressing public-policy question of the day is: What are the main causes of Muslim terrorism? Now, an Ockhamite might surmise that one useful answer is:
Muslims.
But the respectable answer in 2016 isn’t supposed to be anything that blunt. In particular, any acceptable explanation must include the six-syllable word “Islamophobia.”
Logically, Islamophobia sounds like it would be an effect of Islamic terrorism rather than a cause.
But logic hasn’t been the goal in 21st-century America. Status is. Repeating the word “Islamophobia” demonstrates that you have been to college, or at least that you watch talking heads on TV who have been to college.
And that’s what really counts.
In summary, Trump has been able to galvanize American politics by telling so many unfashionable truths because the reigning dogmas of our day are smart in form yet stupid in content.
It's
more than a bit ironic that someone so famous for exaggerating should prove to
be more fundamentally truthful than all the fact-checkers and media pedants who
scrupulously report that which is technically accurate in order to mislead and
deceive.
But no nation is ever likely to suicide itself, as the American nation has done, without being told, and accepting, many lies.
We live in a society that is every bit as dishonest with itself as the Soviet Union ever was. The USA is now the Evil Empire, and like its predecessor, it will collapse in disarray due to the increasing weight of those lies.
But no nation is ever likely to suicide itself, as the American nation has done, without being told, and accepting, many lies.
We live in a society that is every bit as dishonest with itself as the Soviet Union ever was. The USA is now the Evil Empire, and like its predecessor, it will collapse in disarray due to the increasing weight of those lies.