Last night, President Bush gave a speech reiterating what we already know or should know about the Iraq front in the war on Islamic fascism (though he was constrained in his ability to so characterize it). The Democrats and the MSM reacted predictably.
Powerline quotes from an AP report:
Democrats in particular criticized Bush for again raising the Sept. 11 attacks as a justification for the protracted fight in Iraq...
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi accused Bush of demonstrating a willingness "exploit the sacred ground of 9/11, knowing that there is no connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq."
John Hinderaker concludes that:
Pelosi's claim that there is "no connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq" is mind-numbingly obtuse.
He then goes on to list all the many connections between 9/11 and the war. The disconnect between the MSM and political elites (not to mention academia) is truly alarming.
Today, Dr. Zin at Regime Change Iran has a post on possible proof that the recent (s)election in Iran was a complete fraud. No one who relies on the MSM would have any idea that this so-called election was a complete sham and that the turn out was even lower than in previous elections. Of more concern, My Pet Jawa has an extensive post, complete with pictures and links, which shine some light on the new Iranian President's past history. He has an impressive resume. Prior to being appointed Mayor of Tehran, he was a hostage taker, a murderer, and a torturer. Perhaps to our allies in Europe and the MSM it is not worth mentioning that a noted terrorist has been elevated to the Presidency in Iran, though one might naively imagine the leadership of Iran moving in an even more radical direction while being assisted by Vladimir Putin to develop nuclear weapons might catch the eye of an alert editor at the New York Times.
In light of the ongoing slanting and neglect of the news by The New York Times and others, questions occur.
Take a look at what Neuro-Conservative says today in the context of commenting on the recent Supreme Court decisions. To my non-legal point of view, the Supreme Courts decisions on eminent domain and the 10 Commandments are inconsistent and arbitrary, but since I am not a legal scholar, I am perhaps not in the best position to comment on their august proceedings. Neuro-Conservative fears that this very attitude has been and is likely to continue to present serious problems for our democracy. He worries that as knowledge becomes more technical and difficult, common sense is in danger of being left behind as an intellectual elite becomes the gatekeepers of knowledge.
As I have hinted in previous posts, the level of complexity encountered in the study of the brain and of the genome raises the possibility of an intellectual elite serving as the guardians of special knowledge. For sociological and historical reasons that are still not entirely clear to me, these guardians are nearly as uniformly leftist in ideology as the other Elites.
The foremost purpose of this blog is to provide a link between a common-sense conservative understanding of ethics and politics, and the exponentially expanding knowledge base of neuroscience, including brain imaging, psychopharmacology, and genetics. It has been my continuing observation that le plus ca change..., and that these new discoveries need not fundamentally undermine a traditional understanding of human nature and its political needs.
I would suggest a first approximation of an explanation. Those of us who have highly specialized knowledge have intellectual gifts that allow us to master large amounts of often arcane information. We tend to be particularly gifted in these areas, areas where most of our fellow citizens have less facility and are less comfortable treading. However, our immersion in intellectual pursuits exacts a cost. Many of our intellectual elites have been so involved with their specialty as to be relatively unfamiliar with other fields of endeavor. From personal experience I can assure you that few Psychiatrists are very well versed in literature, political philosophy, or military history, just for example. Furthermore, the need for focus and dedication to one's field tends to interfere with the ability to deal with the more mundane "vicissitudes of everyday life" (to quote S. Freud). I would suggest that a more than random percentage of our elite classes have any particular facility with common sense. After all, they are not "common" and do not lead "common" lives.
Another issue is that most technorati tend to be "do-gooders". Physicians want to help people. Neuroscientists want to learn more about people's brains so they can help people live better and longer lives. Physicists want to understand the world better so that people can live better lives. While helping others may not be a primary motivator, it is almost always part of the mental make up of the intellectual; without it, we are left with Wernher van Braun's famous comment, by way of Tom Lehrer:
Once the rockets are up,
Who cares where they come down,
That's not my department
Says Wernher van Braun.
This is a definition of amoral sociopathy and I do not think most intellectuals are sociopaths.
The combination of wishing to do good and social naivety creates a crucial predisposition to Utopianism. Since the intellectual elites are too often not well versed in common sense and have given little thought to political philosophy, they are easily convinced by superficially coherent Utopian ideologies. Socialism is simple to understand ("to each according to his needs and form each according to his abilities") yet the historical record shows it doesn't work and common sense shows that it can never work. I suspect very few members of the intellectual class can explain why they are leftists. It takes intellectual work to develop a political philosophy and if all one's time is spent contemplating the ways in which neural networks form and change in response to input, there is not much time and energy left for the mundane tasks of everyday life.
It seems to me this is a fertile area for further investigation and I will look forward to Neuro-Conservatives thoughts. On a related note, Neo-neocon is promising another installment of her personal odyssey and it seems likely to have something of importance to illuminate this discussion.
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