We're surrounded, give up

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa594.pdf

Thought this was interesting. It's fairly long (almost as long as my health care essay, but much more researched and with some graphs thrown in). The basic gist was easily summarized on the first couple pages though. Human beings when given something objectively and observationally obvious can do a fine job using large numbers of statistics to come up with decent or correct answers. The weight of an ox, the location of a historical site, and so forth. But understanding abstract concepts like economics or foreign policy appears to be something that needs to be left to experts, or at least people with a moderate level of education. One line which was particularly amusing (besides the line on the Berlin Wall) was this one: "pondering two more facts could keep us up at night. Fact 1, the economics the average introductory student absorbs is disappointingly small." The entire essay seems to suggest that people are generally purposefully ignorant and thus irrational, which is a common problem not just with economics. Continuing with the excerpt: "Fact Two: below average students are above-average citizens. Most voters never take a single course in economics. If it is disturbing to imagine the bottom half of the class voting on economics policy, it is frightening to realize that the general population already does. The typical voter, to whose opinions politicians cater, is probably unable to earn a passing grade in economics" To that I say, along with just about anything else of empirical study (history, sociology, etc). People are comfortable with things that have answers, because that's how we're brought into things educationally. Math has an answer (at low levels, most people never study into harmonics, proofs, or non-linear dynamics), science sometimes does as well. History rarely ever does. All it does is make more questions. Its a never ending cycle of dialectic that just annoys people to study. They're more comfortable listing off semi-factual information rather than linking it together into a coherent world view.

I'm always amazed that the average person seems to equate my study of philosophy as an indicator that I must be extremely smart. To me it is hardly a mark of intelligence to study philosophy (although Kant or Aristotle does feel like reading Yoda if you're not doing your mental exercises). Practicing it on the other hand...that's a rare gift. But then, the average person is easily impressed by the wealth of random facts I can offer up to them to dissuade their bizarre world views, in any direction I so choose. The average person also doesn't read these things either. So I feel safe in launching my war against the dumbmasses. It's just too tiresome to deal with the idea that democracy fails because the good people are too dumb and too lazy to make it work.