We’ve been brainwashed
It’s no accident that Americans widely underestimate inequality. The rich prefer it that way
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/14/weve_been_brainwashed/
Flippant title aside, this is an interesting article and I will slide in some quotes to try to motivate you to read the whole thing.
Of course, I do believe that stupid people are easier to brainwash, though I mean ‘stupid’ as in ‘stupid is as stupid does’, not as in lacking intellect. I have read several articles recently about how ‘intelligent’ people (generally measured by IQ or SAT scores, though I would (have) argued that those measurements are a very poor proxy for intelligence) often make poor decisions because they take lazy shortcuts rather than actually think. I am guilty of that myself (not that I tend to include myself with the ‘intelligent’ group, standardized test scores notwithstanding), I tend to make lazy decisions. I swapped a couple of emails with my friend Erik the other day regarding this article and described my situation this way:
Of course, the definition of ‘smart’ is questionable to begin with, SAT scores do not necessarily reflect intelligence, instead it is more about knowledge and experienced problem solving. I admit to falling for the bat and ball issue, but not the lily pad doubling. I think because I work with binary so much that the lily pad doubling fits within a world view I am very experienced with so my natural answer happens to be correct in that case. As for how smart I am, that is also a difficult thing to measure. Just because I might have some facility at doing things that are difficult for most people to do doesn’t necessarily make me smart; I recall one story an old girlfriend likes to tell: I was examining a pepper grinder, took the top off to see inside, then turned it over to look at the bottom. Naturally the pepper corns all poured out onto the floor, so how smart was that? My wife always rolls her eyes when I told her I married her because she is smarter than I am because she tends to equate complex problem solving with smarts and I tend to equate smarts with being able to make better-than-average decisions regarding cost/benefit in shopping and child rearing.
I have also read (but since I am one of the naysayers, can’t generate a bunch of empathy) that the more educated someone is the more likely they will find fault in the science of global warming (just as an aside, I have been reading an interesting book on the ‘Great Basin‘ and how the lake levels have risen and fallen over the last 20K years due to what might be tiny variations in climate, all long before humans had anything to do with anything). So, perhaps ‘smarter’ people can be the most dumb/stupid, perhaps because they are lazy in their thinking and instead rely on whomsoever they choose to believe instead of doing their own research. Since I am a research-minded sort of guy (I still consider myself a scientist, though I haven’t made a living as one for 20 years) and enjoy that sort of thing, I tend to do lots of research (so much easier today than it was when I was younger, thank you Internet and Google!) so believe (perhaps egotistically and mistakenly, but I am human after all) I am better informed and make better judgements (though I am sure that the climate change promoters wouldn’t be so kind (indeed, haven’t been when I have commented)).
So, what does this have to do with the GOP/oligarchy brainwashing us? Well, I think that humans in general are lazy thinkers and would rather avoid thinking novel thoughts. ‘Avoid’ is a bit mild, though, I think the proper term would be ‘run screaming’ from novel thoughts. As such, then seek people/opinions/information that reinforce their preconceived notions and in our information age where nearly any information is just a few pecks at a keyboard away, they actually spend less time researching or thinking then people did when they had less information (of course, that could be reporting bias, mebe in the ‘old days’ the vast majority of people’s thoughts and opinions were totally irrelevant as they were slaves, peasants, underclass, etc.). Thus, in my mind it really isn’t about the oligarchy brainwashing us, it is about us choosing to believe what the oligarchy tells us because that way we don’t have to think.
OK, some quotes from the article in an attempt to tease you into reading it:
In a recent study respondents on average thought that the top fifth of the population had just short of 60 percent of the wealth, when in truth that group holds approximately 85 percent of the wealth. (Interestingly, respondents described an ideal wealth distribution as one in which the top 20 percent hold just over 30 percent of the wealth. Americans recognize that some inequality is inevitable, and perhaps even desirable if one is to provide incentives; but the level of inequality in American society is well beyond that level.)
Not only do Americans misperceive the level of inequality; they underestimate the changes that have been going on. Only 42 percent of Americans believe that inequality has increased in the past ten years, when in fact the increase has been tectonic. Misperceptions are evident, too, in views about social mobility. Several studies have confirmed that perceptions of social mobility are overly optimistic.
and
Even perceptions of race, caste, and gender identities can have significant effects on productivity. In a brilliant set of experiments in India, low- and high-caste children were asked to solve puzzles, with monetary rewards for success. When they were asked to do so anonymously, there was no caste difference in performance. But when the low caste and high caste were in a mixed group where the low-caste individuals were known to be low caste (they knew it, and they knew that others knew it), low-caste performance was much lower than that of the high caste. The experiment highlighted the importance of social perceptions: low-caste individuals somehow absorbed into their own reality the belief that lower-caste individuals were inferior—but only so in the presence of those who held that belief.
