tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post876304168814487634..comments2024-03-29T03:19:09.227-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: BUT WHEN YOU'RE WRONG, YOU'RE WRONGRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-60196818126257953212021-08-24T11:57:29.918-04:002021-08-24T11:57:29.918-04:00Best Merchant Cash Advance Leads are exclusive Le...<a href="https://businessleadsworld.com/" rel="nofollow"> Best Merchant Cash Advance Leads </a> are exclusive Leads addressed to you Merchant Cash Advance Leads is the <a href="https://businessleadsworld.com/" rel="nofollow"> Qualified MCA Leads </a> provider as a firm in the entire globe.Jacob Weberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16789254916564205967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-47764731969838467752018-11-15T17:15:43.774-05:002018-11-15T17:15:43.774-05:00
Another example demonstrating the toxic effect th...<br />Another example demonstrating the toxic effect that Trump is having on the morals of this country.<br /><br />https://people.com/human-interest/homeless-man-gofundme-couple-scam/?xid=<br /><br />What evidence do I have that the two are causally connected? Just my gut instincts, but why should I be held to a higher epistemic standard than Trump and his supporters?MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-87466171274615762018-11-15T14:38:25.198-05:002018-11-15T14:38:25.198-05:00Michael S,
I agree with you that the only realist...Michael S,<br /><br />I agree with you that the only realistic way to defeat Trump in 2020 is for the Democrats to nominate a centrist, with a more progressive liberal as candidate for Vice President. The candidate whom I would prefer – although I know a lot of liberals/progressives regard him as too old and/or too conventional – is Joe Biden. He does not have the baggage that Hillary Clinton had. He also has blue collar roots from growing up in Pennsylvania, and he speaks in a way that working class people can understand and identify with. Had Biden’s son not died from cancer, and he had run, I believe he would have gotten the nomination and would have defeated Trump. My choice for VP would be Elizabeth Warren. I believe such a ticket could beat Trump (assuming he is the Rep. candidate, which seems likely). I do not believe that Warren, or Harris, or Booker, or Gillbrand, or Klobluchar at the top of the ticket can defeat Trump. Alternatively, Sherrod Brown is also beginning to look like a promising candidate for Pres. I just hope, as I have commented previously, that progressive liberals who are not enamored of Biden do not do what they did in 2016, assuring Trump of re-election. We have to do whatever is feasible to get rid of Il Duce – even if it means voting for the lesser of two evils – and I hardly regard Biden as evil.<br /><br />Trump may be impeached by the House; but he will not be convicted in the Senate – unless, unless, there is such damning evidence in Mueller’s report that the Repub.’s cannot turn a blind eye to it. However, I am not convinced that Mueller’s report is going to have such evidence. It is being reported that his staff is presently in the process of writing the report. Given that they are already preparing the report, without having yet indicted Roger Stone, I do not believe Mueller has the goods on Trump. I am, hopefully, mistaken. However, there is still the problem that Whitaker has the authority to suppress the report. The House Judiciary Committee would then have to subpoena it, which the Repub.’s would resist in court. It could take years for that issue to be resolved. Plus, with Kavanaugh and Gorsuch on the Court, a favorable outcome for the Democrats appears unlikely.<br />MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-44035298598130642792018-11-15T13:18:39.614-05:002018-11-15T13:18:39.614-05:00P.S. RE Adorno - he's about as sophisticated a...P.S. RE Adorno - he's about as sophisticated as it comes (indeed, too sophisticated for his own good, sometimes); and so avoiding 'freudian nonsense' is no reason to avoid Adorno. Marcuse is closer to the target of that sort of epithet (as an aside, I can't myself see how anyone can criticize Hegel for his obscurity but give Marcuse a pass, but anyway). And, personally, even though I've read some of Hegel, I still find Adorno very often very difficult indeed.Michael Snoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-11050722623420242532018-11-15T13:15:04.167-05:002018-11-15T13:15:04.167-05:00Little-me's predictions for 2020:
Republicans...Little-me's predictions for 2020:<br /><br />Republicans: Trump gets properly challenged in the primaries; the other candidate(s) push him all the way (though this will be in part the chosen narrative); and in so doing further energise his base.<br /><br />Democrats: this time, they will nominate someone non-centrist; due to the fear over losing again to Trump with a centrist; the nightmares of 2016; and the energy being at the fringes (partly in response to the above-predicted right-wing centre-of-energy).<br /><br />And the Democratic candidate will lose. On the evidence of the mid-terms (and just plausible reasoning about human psychology), centrism is the electorally more reliable strategy, to combat Trump - which very much overwhelmingly is the priority; not wishful thinking about the lovely shiny lefty projects that we might all spend our days dreaming about being enacted by Bernie Ocasio-Cortez.<br /><br />All this dependent upon Trump surviving until 2020 - which is highly likely, since impeachment is not going to happen.<br /><br />(And for an example of lefty wishful thinking...) Thus the only hope, on this scenario, is an actual blue wave in 2020, in congress, and impeachment swiftly thereafter. Michael Snoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-44553943605415629742018-11-15T12:06:00.059-05:002018-11-15T12:06:00.059-05:002 stories in today’s news sparked my interest and ...2 stories in today’s news sparked my interest and I had an irresistible impulse (the significance of this terminology will be made clearer below) to post a comment about them.<br /><br />The 1st story relates to a prior comment I made re the fact humans are descended from primates might explain our warlike tendencies. There was some discussion whether humans are innately warlike, a proposition Noam Chomsky rejects. The story relates that in Agra, India, the population of monkeys has skyrocketed and they have become very aggressive, attacking tourists. The instance of aggression reported in the story is shocking – and arguably provides support for the proposition that, if humans are not inherently warlike, they may, by virtue of their primate DNA, be inherently aggressive.<br /><br />http://www.newser.com/story/267290/monkey-snatches-newborn-from-mothers-arms-kills-him.html<br /><br />The 2nd story reports that a defense attorney in Ireland, whose client was charged with rape, showed the jury the lacy panties that the accuser was wearing, claiming she enticed the accused and the sex was consensual. The defendant was acquitted. A female member of the Irish Parliament brought a pair of her panties into the august chamber, making the point that panties cannot grant consent.<br /><br />http://www.newser.com/story/267298/irish-lawmakers-protest-pulling-thong-from-sleeve.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=uol&utm_campaign=rss_top<br /><br />Why did this story spark my interest? In 1959, the movie Anatomy of a Murder was released. The movie was directed by Otto Preminger and starred James Stewart as a laidback lawyer from the Mich. Upper Peninsula who defends an army lieutenant (played by Ben Gazzara), charged with the murder of a man his wife (Lee Remick) claims raped her. A sophisticated prosecutor from the Attorney General’s office (George C. Scott) is called in to assist the local prosecutor against the wily hick country lawyer. If you have not seen the movie, I strongly recommend it. It is James Stewart at his best, and Scott is superb in one of his earliest movies. The movie was based on the book written by Mich. S. Ct. Justice John Voelker, under the penname Robert Traver, and is based on a case he had as a defense attorney. Stewart decides to defend Gazzara by invoking a then rarely used defense of “irresistible impulse,” i.e., temporary insanity, caused by the outrage of learning his wife had been raped. During the trial, Scott strives to prevent any mention of the rape, arguing it is irrelevant as a defense. An issue arises regarding the location of Remick’s missing panties, which she claims her assailant ripped off. The panties are finally located, and shown in the courtroom. In 1959, this was scandalous – the mere mention of the word was considered indiscreet. Preminger was roundly criticized in some circle for showing panties in a movie. (Yes, times have radically changed.) There is one wonderful scene where Scott, while conducting a cross-examination, keeps standing in front of Stewart so Stewart cannot see the witness. Stewart objects, and Scott unctuously apologizes. Stewart shouts, “If you do that one more time, I’m going to kick you from here into Lake Michigan!” I will not reveal any more of the plot – download it from Netflix. (It has an ambiguous ending.)<br /><br />A bit of trivia. The trial judge is played by Joseph Welch, the lawyer who had the courage to stand up to Joe McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy hearings and helped bring him down by asking, after McCarthy accused one of the young attorneys on Welch’s staff of being a Communist, “Have you no decency sir, at long last, have you no decency?” That single question was sufficient to discredit McCarthy. As I pointed out in a previous comment, things have also changed in this regard – it has become eminently clear that Il Duce has no decency, and everybody can see it. But it has not been sufficient to turn his stalwart supporters against him. As I asked in that previous comment – have we become inured to indecency–like we are no longer embarrassed by the showing of a woman’s panties in a movie?<br />MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-74088192515608616842018-11-15T02:28:31.139-05:002018-11-15T02:28:31.139-05:00Apropos of nothing in particular, I found this rec...Apropos of nothing in particular, I found this recent <a href="https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2018/11/11/what-the-midterms-tell-us-about-how-to-oppose-trump/" rel="nofollow">blog post</a> about the midterms, and opposing Trump, to be quite insightful and helpful.TheDudeDiogeneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11613928663752680375noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-31411553919012790092018-11-15T01:44:28.608-05:002018-11-15T01:44:28.608-05:00This calls to mind the essay from Kant, which I re...This calls to mind the essay from Kant, which I recently re-read (thanks to <a href="https://theelectricagora.com/2018/10/19/course-notes-immanuel-kant-what-is-enlightenment/" rel="nofollow">this post</a>), <a href="https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/What_is_Enlightenment.pdf" rel="nofollow">"What is Enlightenment?"</a><br /><br />Two quotations from the essay especially stick out to me, in relation to your comment:<br /><br />1. "It is so convenient to be immature! If I have a book to have understanding in place of me, a spiritual adviser to have a conscience for me, a doctor to judge my diet for me, and so on, I need not make any efforts at all. I need not think, so long as I can pay; others will soon enough take the tiresome job over for me. (p. 1)"<br /><br />2. "Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred it its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: <i>Sapere aude</i>! Have courage to use your own understanding! (p. 1)"TheDudeDiogeneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11613928663752680375noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-82167311654824317122018-11-14T12:32:09.651-05:002018-11-14T12:32:09.651-05:00I just came across an expression, used by a commen...I just came across an expression, used by a commenter to a question on Quora, that I had never heard before: “a load of old cobblers.” The expression, referring to an opinion, asserts that it is nonsense.<br /><br />Curious about the expression’s origin, I did a search on Google, and came up with this:<br /><br />The origin is in rhyming slang for cobbler's awl. An awl is a pointed tool for making holes in things; it is an essential part of a shoemaker's (cobbler's) kit. The rhyming linked cobbler"s awls with balls, ie slang for testicles. Cobblers then came to be used in the same way as balls. A load of old cobblers is an extension of the saying. <br /><br />So now, whenever I read about some new nonsense that Il Duce has spewed, I can say, “Cobblers!” – which seems appropriate, given his penchant for groin related comments. (The expression that the Quora commenter used added the adjective “old,” which also seems appropriate, given Il Duce’s age – therefore, “Old Cobblers!”)<br />MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-17630448887223573072018-11-14T08:02:28.618-05:002018-11-14T08:02:28.618-05:00MS,
I read Fromm's book many years ago and I ...MS,<br /><br />I read Fromm's book many years ago and I don't recall the details of it.<br /><br />However, according to Zaretsky, Adorno does not see demagogues like Long as father figures, but as "just like the masses". The masses identify with them because they are as childish as they are. That fits Trump well.<br /><br />FDR, on the other hand, would be a father figure just like Washington (example given by Zaretsky), that is, someone more mature, more adult, and more rational (I suppose since Zaretsky does not explain) than the masses.<br /><br />Trump then is a child who embodies the masses's repressed fantasies (about harassing women, about insulting Macron, about being an unscrupulous mafia-type businessperson, etc.).<br /><br />I agree with you that Trumpism is so complex that any one explanation falls short. In fact, one would need to write a novel to explain any one Trump supporter, his or her childhood, their fantasies, their current social and economic situation, their sex life, etc..<br /><br />Still, it seems useful to try to examine Trumpism from as many angles and perspectives as possible. No one perspective is THE CORRECT one.s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-1482445990694078872018-11-14T00:45:14.567-05:002018-11-14T00:45:14.567-05:00s. wallerstein,
I read the article by Eli Zaretsk...s. wallerstein,<br /><br />I read the article by Eli Zaretsky that you provided the link to. It was interesting and informative in some respects. However, I believe that the phenomenon of authoritarianism in general, and Trump’s appeal in particular, which Zaretsky discusses at length, is so complex that it is difficult to develop a single defining theory that explains it. I read Erich Fromm’s Flight From Freedom many years ago, and I may remember this incorrectly, but I recall the main theme that he was expounding is that people attracted to totalitarian leaders are, as he puts it, fleeing from freedom – they cannot deal with the demands that democracy puts on them to act independently and think for themselves. They cede authority and decision making to a father (or mother) figure who makes decisions for them, and convinces them that s/he is looking out for their best interests and all they have to do, rather than thinking for themselves, is let their father/mother figure make those decisions for them. I suppose that that is what I meant when I referred to such people as “stupid” – that they believe they have been exploited and misused by the conventional powers that be, and that, by contrast, the demagogue father/mother figure truly does have their best interests at heart, and uses wedge issues to demonstrate this, when the demagogue really does not care about them and in fact advances policies that hurt them more than the policies of the conventional powers whom they reject. I refer to the mentality that allows them to be exploited in this manner as stupidity.<br /><br />One point that Zaretsky made that I found interesting was that he referred to Huey Long as a demagogue and distinguished him from President Roosevelt, whom he does not regard as a demagogue. So I wondered, what does distinguish a demagogue politician like Long from a politician like Roosevelt? To those who worshiped Roosevelt, he was also a father figure – when he died, masses of people mourned as if they had lost a father. But he was not an authoritarian father figure. Long was a fiery orator, but I do not believe his philosophy was authoritarian. Hitler, also a great orator, was authoritarian. And Roosevelt, was likewise an outstanding, persuasive orator. How did their styles of oratory differ? And Trump, who I do not regard as a great orator, is still able to persuade a not insignificant segment of the American population that he has their best interests at heart and inspires their loyalty. Zaretsky hypothesizes that, as I understand his point, part of his appeal lies in the fact that his narcissism reflects the narcissism of his supporters, and it is this shared narcissism that creates their bond. This sounds like overly intellectual theorizing. The phenomenon may be too complex to encapsulate in any one theory.<br />MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-78271726607326644052018-11-13T16:57:34.675-05:002018-11-13T16:57:34.675-05:00Charles Pidgen,
The Authoritarian Personality is ...Charles Pidgen,<br /><br />The Authoritarian Personality is not armchair psychoanalysis. They correlate 9 personality traits, none of which seems especially Freudian, for example, conventionalism, authoritarian submission and authoritarian aggression, measured through questionnaires and<br />personal interviews, with anti-semitic opinions (which at the time the study appeared, 1950, seemed the best indicator of fascism). <br /><br />I don't doubt that later studies, such as the one you recommend, have made valuable criticisms of the shortcomings of the original study, but surely the vision of someone as brilliant as Adorno is worth reading, as are later criticisms. s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-71701172624297566272018-11-13T15:52:31.245-05:002018-11-13T15:52:31.245-05:00With reference to to MS's remarks I don't ...With reference to to MS's remarks I don't think the problem is *just* stupidity. I recommend Bob Altemeyer's research on the authoritarian personality, summed up in his book, 'The Authoritarians ' and in John Dean's popularisation 'Conservatives without Conscience'. More up-to-date than Adorno and I suspect less contaminated by Freudian nonsense. Charles Pigdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01131765562671298571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-4983954599206074122018-11-13T14:59:02.549-05:002018-11-13T14:59:02.549-05:00Here's a recent short article from the London ...Here's a recent short article from the London Review of Books, which analyzes Trumpism in the light of Adorno's work:<br /><br />https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2018/09/18/eli-zaretsky/the-mass-psychology-of-trumpism/s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-51924463867587569722018-11-13T14:42:54.395-05:002018-11-13T14:42:54.395-05:00s. wallerstein,
Thank you for the Adorno referenc...s. wallerstein,<br /><br />Thank you for the Adorno reference. I have just requested a library loan of The Authoritarian Personality from the University of Michigan Graduate Library.<br /><br />I know I am not nearly the intellectual equal of John Stuart Mill, and perhaps I do not qualify as an ultra-rationalist, but since he thought it legitimate to appraise some people as being stupid, am I not entitled to the same privilege?<br />MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-15951551844824984302018-11-13T13:54:08.693-05:002018-11-13T13:54:08.693-05:00William Sealy Gosset
Thank you!
And my feeble at...William Sealy Gosset<br /><br />Thank you!<br /><br />And my feeble attempts at humor have brought you back from the dead!<br /><br />(My therapist also tells me that I suffer from grandiose delusions of a Lazarus complex.)<br />MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-63572427154776584362018-11-13T13:32:49.428-05:002018-11-13T13:32:49.428-05:00"MS"
I shall say no more."MS"<br /><br />I shall say no more.w. s. gossetnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-4743134520475574072018-11-13T12:44:55.035-05:002018-11-13T12:44:55.035-05:00MS,
John Stuart Mill says "not all conservat...MS,<br /><br />John Stuart Mill says "not all conservatives are stupid, but most stupid people are conservative". However, Mill, like Chomsky, was an ultra-rationalist. <br /><br />Adorno and Marcuse who both personally witnessed Nazism take over their native Germany saw the rise of fascism as more complex. By the way, Marcuse was studying philosophy with Heidegger of all people when Nazism rose to power and he had to flee to the U.S. <br /><br />Adorno's study, the Authoritarian Personality, is an empirical study of the relation between anti-semitism and certain personality traits, well worth reading. Some of Adorno's writing are almost impossible to read for someone who doesn't know Hegel (like myself), but the Authoritarian Personality is no more difficult than any other work of academic social psychology and was done at the University of California at Berkeley along with U.S. academics, who probably tempered Adorno's tendency to ultra-abstraction. s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-80809549567410901072018-11-13T12:14:41.784-05:002018-11-13T12:14:41.784-05:00statistician,
I was not challenging your statisti...statistician,<br /><br />I was not challenging your statistical knowledge by asking who the author of the student t test was. I would genuinely like to know. My comment was perhaps a misguided attempt at humor.<br /><br />And yes, I have been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, with symptoms of bi-polar disorder and kleptomaniac tendencies. And your flippant mocking of my constellation of serious mental conditions has caused me profound emotional pain and anguish.<br />MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-81433885356440981142018-11-13T11:37:42.223-05:002018-11-13T11:37:42.223-05:00“MS”/RPW’s way of responding to my revealing hsi “...“MS”/RPW’s way of responding to my revealing hsi “doppelganger” status is revealingly consistent with his other offerings. Asking whether I used this or that relatively trivial, standard statistical technique and concluding by challenging me to identify some student or other, fits precisely with his frequent, immodest claims to superior intelligence and erudition. I urge him to get help for his condition. (Since my knowledge of human psychology is slight, I'll not presume to name it.)statisticiannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-75642814961348877492018-11-13T11:21:12.547-05:002018-11-13T11:21:12.547-05:00s. wallerstein,
There you go again, using my init...s. wallerstein,<br /><br />There you go again, using my initials to argue with yourself.<br /><br />Yes, I know, calling people who, seduced by specious arguments, vote against their own self-interest, stupid seems uncharitable. But how else does one, in all candor – if candor is an objective - describe it? Saying they have been brain-washed is a smokescreen. Incarcerated POWs, subjected to sleep deprivation and incessant repeating of the captor’s propaganda, can become brainwashed into adopting the captor’s propaganda. A kidnapped hostage – separated for months from friends and relatives - can become susceptible to the Stockholm syndrome. But union members who are not sleep deprived or subjected to water boarding, who have access to publicly available information that debunks the specious arguments, who espouse workers’ rights, and then vote for a billionaire who has never demonstrated the least iota of solidarity with workers, because he tells them the reason they are struggling to make ends meet is because hordes of foreigners south of their country’s border are sneaking into their country to kill them and rape their daughters, are – and I don’t see any other word for it – stupid. We may not learn to understand them by using such insulting terminology, but maybe there is nothing we can learn that would rationally explain their behavior. Moreover, this phenomenon does not just apply to the current Il Duce. Workers in the U.S. have been voting for Republicans against their economic interests for decades, ever since Nixon initiated his Southern strategy. As my mother would say, stupid is as stupid does. Or, in Yiddish, Az men hot nit in kop hot men in di fis – If it’s not in the head, it’s in the feet.<br /><br />Using your example, rather than voting for a candidate who supports free dental care for your family, voting instead for a candidate who tells you the candidate who is offering free dental care is also proposing gun control legislation to reduce the likelihood your children will get shot while attending school, and in so doing is threatening to take your guns away, which you may need to defend yourself against a possible seizure of your government by a left-wing military coup – what other word, putting niceties aside, can one use other than “stupid”?<br /><br />Even supposedly intelligent, well-educated people can be stupid. I once had to argue an appeal of a case that had been dismissed on a motion for summary judgment. The defendant, a law firm, argued the lawsuit had been filed outside the 2-year statute of limitations for a legal malpractice case. I argued it was not a legal malpractice case. I had alleged breach of fiduciary duty, which has a 3 yr. statute of limitations, and the lawsuit had been filed less than 3 years after the conduct constituting the breach had occurred. I pointed out that nowhere in the complaint were the words “legal malpractice” used. The single count expressly alleged breach of fiduciary duty. During the oral argument on the appeal, the chief judge of the three-judge panel kept glaring at me while I was making my 15 minute argument. (Out of an abundance of caution, I always used the maximum time available to make sure I was getting my points across – you can’t tell from an appellate judge’s demeanor whether s/he is leaning in your favor or finds your argument frivolous.) Suddenly, he angrily shouted at me, “You know, this isn’t rocket science!” as if I was wasting his time over an obviously wrongly decided decision. I bit my tongue – one never argues with an appellate judge, doing so can turn a potentially favorable reversal into an affirmance. I politely responded, yes, your Honor, I agree, but I was only doing my job, as I angrily thought to myself, “Yes, I agree that it’s not rocket science, so why the f....k did the trial judge get such a simple concept so obviously wrong!” Biting my tongue resulted in a reversal.<br /><br />In evaluating the self-defeating voting habits of blue collar workers, I see no need to be polite – a lack of candor will only confirm them in their belief in the wisdom of their stupidity.<br />MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-54389890281556042462018-11-13T07:37:01.898-05:002018-11-13T07:37:01.898-05:00MS,
We don't learn anything by calling Trump ...MS,<br /><br />We don't learn anything by calling Trump supporters "stupid". You don't need a genius IQ to realize that it's wiser to vote for candidates who support free dental care for your children.<br /><br />So we're back, as far as I can see, to the brainwashing hypothesis. Chomsky, being an ultra-rational person himself, tends to see others as rational when they're not. You might find better explanations of how the masses are manipulated by the system in thinkers like Marcuse and even more so in Adorno, philosophers who combine Marx with Freud and with other psychoanalytic and social psychology findings. s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-46644458067493859692018-11-13T02:18:06.371-05:002018-11-13T02:18:06.371-05:00Charles ,
I am adding one more data point to butt...Charles ,<br /><br />I am adding one more data point to buttress statistician’s theory.<br /><br />Yes, the status of unions in the United States is depressing. But how does one explain or understand that the workers and poor, either by not voting at all or by voting against their own economic interests, empower the Republicans to exploit them? How does one explain or understand union members who profess to support workers’ rights, and then go out and vote for a maniacal billionaire who cares not the least about their welfare and despises unions? Taken together, the poor and working class in the United States vastly outnumber the Republicans and could take over the presidency and both houses of Congress if they just used their heads and did not allow the Republicans to manipulate them with wedge issues, such as abortion and gun rights The wealthy. sacrilegious Republicans convince blue color workers that human life begins at conception, so that they vote against their own economic interests in order to have Supreme Court nominees appointed who will vote against abortion rights. (By the way, isn’t that an odd spelling – I would have thought “sacriligious” would have been spelled “sacreligious.” But maybe that’s the point – there is no “religion” in sacrilege.) They convince them that if gun control legislation is passed, the U.S. government will confiscate their assault and hunting rifles and turn the country into dictatorship. So, what do they do – they go out and elect an aspiring dictator.<br /><br />I know that Noam Chomsky opines that if these people were just educated to see how they are being manipulated and brainwashed, awareness of their natural self-interest would rise to the surface and fee them of their delusions. But, and I know it is indiscreet and discourteous to say this, perhaps they are just too stupid to see how they are being used, and no amount of education is going to remedy this. I try, but I find it hard to be sympathetic for people who cannot see what is obvious – that insisting that life begins at conception and abortions are immoral, at the same time that they are denied a living wage and the only tool they have with which to fight back, union organizing, is being undermined, so that the wealthy powers that be can continue to exploit them and keep those unaborted children hostage to their impoverishment. I find it hard to be sympathetic for people who vote against candidates who support gun control - the same candidates who would also support legislation that would improve their economic circumstances and nominate Supreme Court justices who would not vote in favor of union busting doctrines such as right to work legislation under the specious argument that such legislation protects free speech by preventing compelled speech – in order to insure that they can continue to keep their assault rifles to protect their impoverished lives, just in case of the unlikely event that the government would turn on them and attempts to enslave them in a communist dictatorship, when they are already enslaved in an economic system that doesn’t care about them, and which they perpetuate by not voting at all, or by not voting for candidates who could actually improve their lives.<br /><br />Yes it is very depressing, but as the adage goes, God helps those who help themselves – and in the absence of a God, people have to educate themselves, take their blinders off and use the ballot box sensibly in order to help themselves.<br />MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-30120392436714512652018-11-13T00:16:56.704-05:002018-11-13T00:16:56.704-05:00statistician,
Did you use the student t test or t...statistician,<br /><br />Did you use the student t test or the chi squared test?<br /><br />And who was the student who invented the student t test anyway?MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-46089430797682968692018-11-12T22:08:26.476-05:002018-11-12T22:08:26.476-05:00The just provided new data is enough to make my co...The just provided new data is enough to make my conclusion even more statistically robust.statisticiannoreply@blogger.com