Talking with idiots

How do you reason with “complete idiots”?   In this issue of SFGate, Mark Morford tells you how.

Share

Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

This Post Has 4 Comments

  1. Avatar of Dan Klarmann
    Dan Klarmann

    He suggests 3 avenues:

    Use intellect, feed them facts. Futile because "la, la, la we can't hear you , la, la, la"

    Dumb yourself down to their level. Futile because then there is no way to access the smart side.

    Ignore them. He cites this as the only way to go.

    But ignoring them doesn't work. The idiots simply declare victory, and with no opposing view expressed, they take over. The scientific community tried ignoring Creationists in the 1980's and 1990's, and by now half of America has only heard their side. People who have no idea what science is are selecting science texts for American Schools, and special anti-science museums have erupted like mushrooms on the landscape.

    He does link to this video: Frank Schaeffer on Rachel Maddow about idiot attacks on Obama and how mainstream media mostly ignores them. Best quote from the video: "You cannot reorganize village life to suit the village idiot."

    But ignoring the idiots just encourages them.

  2. Avatar of Mark Tiedemann
    Mark Tiedemann

    A more difficult but possibly more effective route is: don't talk to the idiots, but talk to those who give them money/support. Not all of them are idiots, only misinformed and, occasionally, frightened. Challenge stupidity for the sake of the still-marginally reasonable.

    This can take a long time, but the idiotosphere, as he calls it, is rich because we stopped teaching reason to children and gave up on a commitment to rationalism for the sake of "inclusion."

  3. Avatar of Niklaus Pfirsig
    Niklaus Pfirsig

    Maybe it's partly for inclusion, but it's also very profitable for certain businesses to have a consumer arm that will believe anything you tell them.

  4. Avatar of Niklaus Pfirsig
    Niklaus Pfirsig

    I noticed a book display this morning with Glen Beck's new book "Arguing with Idiots" on display. The on paper jacket, Beck appears to be attired in a Russian army dress uniform.

    Hmmm… I wonder if that's part of his message?

Leave a Reply