Saturday, June 25, 2011

Can You Challenge Your Own Assumptions?

THE DAVID MAMET QUESTION

Playwright David Mamet, in his new book, The Secret Knowledge, explains why he's jumped from liberal to conservative in his thinking.

It might be an extreme leap to make. My idea is to take the best from both camps-- or at least eliminate the worst of ideas available from both sides.

The question is why Mamet made the change.

It might be his realization that what passes today as Liberal is not liberal-- not as the word was known fifty years ago, during liberalism's heyday and the idealization which came with the election of JFK. (See the notion of integration, for instance, which has been abandoned by the Left in the interest of the balkanization of American society and culture.)

Or, it might be that Mamet became frustrated with the utter stupidity, on issue after issue, by those mechanically mouthing the stances of today's liberal-Left.

Maybe not stupidity so much as gullibility-- the inability to question what's programmed into them.

This is an interesting phenomenon. When you see the progressive individual wearing a t-shirt that says, "Question Everything," you can be certain that the individual questions nothing. Wearing the slogan eliminates the need to question. It certifies that the individual is already correct in his ideas, no further examination necessary. The work has already been done. Somewhere, offstage, presumably by the person's professors, who hand the hapless soul prepackaged doctrine accompanied by liberal sanctification removing any need for further thought.

I use the example of manmade Global Warming Theory because it's such an obvious case. (I've been introduced to people before with this phrase: "Karl doesn't believe in Global Warming." In other words, I'm something of a nut. All thought closed off.)

The vast mass of people who accept Global Warming haven't looked into it. They accept it as a whole, in large part because it comes from on high, from authority figures. How can anyone question it?

The more successfully educated the person, the more gullible. For this reason: Those who do best in high school and college, at the very top of the pool, all A's and other scholastic honors, are those persons who best accept what's taught them, and ingest it fully so they can hand it back at a moment's notice.

I could sit down in front of you with graph paper and within fifteen minutes show you what Global Warming Theory is based on, and what's wrong and inadequate about its premises.

Not that this would make a difference to you. Humans aren't logical animals, for the most part. They're most comfortable when part of a herd. (p.s. This applies to the Right as well as the Left.)
*********************************************
Global Warming hysteria can be explained through a book which should be part of everyone's education, but isn't: Charles MacKay's Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Well known among hard core investors and speculators. It's worth a look.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: In correcting a mistake I made regarding the author of said book, and googling the title, I stumbled upon an interesting paper regarding the Global Warming controversy:
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/05/the-truth-about-greenhouse-gases
Worth a look for those interested in truth instead of ideology.)

2 comments:

Lincoln said...

Charles MacKay wrote the Extraordinary Delusions book that you mention.

King Wenclas said...

Oops! Thanks for the3 correction. (I've made it on the post.)
It's what happens when you try to rely on memory. I read the book about twenty years ago when working with a commodity trader. Tracking hysteria was a common necessity.
One thing I did back then was chart commodities. What's an accurate chart? It depends on the time frame, especially when studying natural cycles.
What's a natural cycle where global temperature is concerned?
Considering that the Ice Age was more than 10,000 years ago, for us to know what's manmade or not, we need a wide range. This is a wide range for us feeble humans, who flit across the stage for an instant. Ten thousand years is an eyelash blink when compared to geological time; the time of the sun and the planets.
Reliable temperature records go back a mere 200 years. This is like trying to judge a baseball season by the outcome of two games.
Or-- not enough data!
This was one of many red flags for me.
Global warming may indeed turn out to be one of the greatest scams in human history.
**********
Thanks again!