The proverbial story of the semi trailer getting stuck under the freeway overpass, expert structural engineers called to the scene debating the best way to get the truck clear without causing more damage, describing the magnitude of the project, young kid of one of the emergency responders suggesting deflating the tires of the trailer. True or fable, it exposes the cluelessness of the "experts" full of knowledge, lacking common sense.
“The more highly educated a man is along certain lines, the easier he is to dupe."
Over a century ago Harry Houdini shared insights about fooling smart people. In "Houdini Exposes the Tricks":
Many know Houdini as the magician. But not as many know he spent the last decades of his life as a political activist. He traveled around the nation and testified before Congress and many state legislatures. Trying to get mediums, seances and psychics banned. He blamed them for scamming his mother out of her money, giving her false hope she could communicate with a loved one who passed. He traced the influences of the mediums back to several White Houses. Including Pres. Lincoln, Mary hosted seances there. As did many other presidents who followed.
There's something to it, along the lines of higher education makes us capable of rationalizing and justifying nearly anything we can conceive of. That inexperts don't fall for.
George Orwell wrote of the same phenomenon. Of the regular common sense folks who see right through the lies:
"they are at once too sane and too stupid to acquire the totalitarian outlook."
"Meanwhile, totalitarianism has not fully triumphed anywhere. Our own society is still, broadly speaking, liberal. To exercise your right of free speech you have to fight against economic pressure and against strong sections of public opinion, but not, as yet, against a secret police force. You can say or print almost anything so long as you are willing to do it in a hole-and-corner way. But what is sinister, as I said at the beginning of this essay, is that the conscious enemies of liberty are those to whom liberty ought to mean most. The big public do not care about the matter one way or the other. They are not in favour of persecuting the heretic, and they will not exert themselves to defend him. They are at once too sane and too stupid to acquire the totalitarian outlook. The direct, conscious attack on intellectual decency comes from the intellectuals themselves."
FF - And even the Chinese communists shared insights about fooling smart people during Mao's reign using infectious disease to fundamentally transform the nation from nationalist into communist. This book also introduced the concept of "Disease Politics" - yes, health, disease, plandemics ARE political!:
Rural Health Care Delivery
Modern China from the Perspective of Disease Politics
Chapter 13.2 “The Higher the Education Level One Has, the Sillier He Is”
FactCheck: TRUE!
In my Stack, https://freedomfox.substack.com/p/the-devious-use-of-infectious-disease I describe the book more at length. There's even more interesting chapters and subchapter titles that are expounded on when reading the book (requires purchase now, used to have free one downloadable/viewable online). Such as:
5.3 Discipline Imposed by Hygiene ["It's a public health emergency! You must comply! You must obey! You must sacrifice! Disobedience is selfishness!"]
8 State of “the People” [The Collective]
9.4 “To Combine Health Campaigns with Mass Movements” ["We're in this together! Together we can beat this!"]
10.3 The “Cleanness” of the State and Legitimacy Construction [Only "clean" people can legitimately function in society. The others are dirty. "Dirty Jews!" “Unvaxxed!”]
11 The Patriotic Hygiene Campaign and the Construction of Clean New People ["Do your part - wear the mask, get the jab!"]
12 A Farewell to the “Sick Man of East Asia”: The Irony, Deconstruction, and Reshaping of the Metaphor ["We're getting rid of our dirty, dirty people. We have a Final Solution."]
13.2 “The Higher the Education Level One Has, the Sillier He Is” [TRUE!!]
13.3 “Comments on Wearing a Medical Mask” [Symbolic display of virtuousness]
17.3 From “the Benevolent Medicine” to the “Formula for Money-Making” [TRUE!!]
17.4 One’s Life or Death Is Utterly Dependent on One’s Fate ["You really can't do anything about it. Some eggs gotta get broken. Won't matter if you're on the good or bad team, it's just your fate."]
19 A Public Country and Its Expansion [Collectivist governance vs. individualist rights]
20 The Logic of Disease Politics ["The pandemic isn't political! There's no "plandemic." We're just following The Science (TM)! You're a science-denier, selfish, conspiracy theorist, death cult."]
FF - 'Smart' people are known to be very susceptible to the politicization of any subject. Much moreso than people with ordinary intelligence while possessing simple common sense. 'Smart' minds can be made hyper-malleable, able to rationalize and justify anything, even sudden shifts from demonstrable, unassailable knowledge to their opposite contradiction. 'Smart' minds are capable of Olympic medal-winning gymnastics to believe something provably false when asserted by those in positions they trust, no matter how patently absurd or contradictory they are.
And remember Voltaire's caution: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." It is the 'smartest' people who commit, orchestrate atrocities. No. We don't "trust the experts." We won't "trust the experts." We do our own research. And are guided by our own common sense. There's a very good reason Thomas Paine titled his pamphlet "Common Sense" when arousing notions of freedom among the colonists who "trusted the experts" like the King told them to do. Lessons for us today are in that 250-year-old+ work.
I have to contain myself not to write a long rant, but I will end writing one anyway. You probably know this is one of my pet peeves. It has two sides, both of them terrible ideas. One is the thought that "experts" are the ones that are entitled to proclaim "the truth". Eveyone then accepts whatever the "experts" say. The other side, which is a corollary to the first idea, is that no one is entitled to formulate an opinion - even about the most simple, common sense topics - unless they can claim to be an "expert" in the subject. As you said in another comment: "you are not a doctor". What a lot of BS; you cannot dare to say if someone is a woman, unless you are a biologist. Where did they get this crap? I have mentioned elsewhere that I work trying to teach young medical doctors to think critically. One of the things I try to teach them is that they do not necessarily need to recognize the "experts" who tell them what are the "guidelines" to practice medicine. It is an uphill battle.
I can't stand how scientists are paid well (research) if they are satisfying the evil ones in control. They have suppressed many doctors who have come out with the truth, ie; Dr McCullough. CDC needs to be done with. And AMA lies for $. People who live in fear when they can't control things. Those are sheepies.
A very thoughtful article! It’s still a “ why “ for me re. why so many people accept with no thought or curiosity the statements of “ experts “ many of whom are bought and paid for. Regarding conversations with friends and family I navigate convo topics very carefully to avoid the minefields……
Yes, with the era of covid, it brought a lot out into the open for those with eyes to see, and ears to hear. Experts were being grown by the minute it seemed. However, there were never any experts on the side of sanity. I have heard people say well it is the highly educated that know the truth (the agenda) so therefore the rest of us must not be educated. Excuse me!
Well, there were no agenda-proclaimed "experts" from the shrew pack, that's for sure, but we definitely have our share of experts...highly educated as well.
I know I'm in for a treat when you start your article with "I was out with a friend..." because you will reveal something deliciously ridiculous in what they said. My blood boils at the same things. I lost my best friend for two years because I dared to mention some things I had learned, and she screamed at me "You're not a doctor!" I finally offered the olive branch of forgiveness and she agreed to reconnect, but the censorship is now part of the relationship. I hate being silenced, but there is enough overlap in the forty-year friendship to make it tolerable.
I too lost a friend I had since childhood when I mentioned that some people believe Michele Obama is a man and they have interesting “evidence” to support their opinions. My friend never asked me if I believed it myself or what the evidence was, instead she was absolutely livid that I would even bring the subject up. She ended our friendship the same day by sending me a text saying it was time to go our separate ways. It still hurts to think that such an idle comment would end a friendship of over 50 years, but when I thought back on her reactions to other situations I realized that she was the rigidly intolerant one, not me, and we were destined to part ways eventually. In this case it had nothing to do with an expert opinion but more of an absolute denial of a different opinion.
This is a common response. It is one thing for people to just, with a hand wave, dismiss you. That is how it used to be (still not very wise, IMHO). Now you are HATED for suggesting something might be a tad different than the mainstream is bellowing.
It's so disheartening to be in relationships with friends and family who do not accept the totallity of who you are. I don't remember this being a thing when I was young.
Don't get me started on this one. I have been accused of being hateful, evil, "white-privileged," masculine toxic, homophobic, etc. etc. by people who KNOW me, and claim to LOVE me...this isn't opinion, it is presented to me as fact...even as opinion it is not based on a single objective fact...crazy.
True! It seemed in the past that people were more curious about the opinions of others and were more inclined to agree to disagree. I find the hair-trigger fits of temper over unimportant matters (to me) startling.
EXACTLY...what you described is exactly the problem. Everyone is way too serious. I remember a time when being eccentric and having "off narrative" insights, opinions, or weird ideas, was, at worst, odd, and mostly just interesting.
"You're not a doctor!" is the agenda at work. Dismiss anything but the mainstream narrative is the goal. We are all stupid, idiot, sheep and don't know a damn thing.
The irony here is that we can be quoting a real, informed, even brilliant doctor, and THAT isn't good enough..."doctor" can only be defined by the agenda...
True and even some of our outstanding Canadian doctors: Trozzi, Shoemaker, Hodkinson, Bridle, and more. By the way, I admire Dr. Coleman so much. So much of what he writes is absolute spot on.
Life is too short and unpredictable to lose long time friendships so easily.
Agreed
The proverbial story of the semi trailer getting stuck under the freeway overpass, expert structural engineers called to the scene debating the best way to get the truck clear without causing more damage, describing the magnitude of the project, young kid of one of the emergency responders suggesting deflating the tires of the trailer. True or fable, it exposes the cluelessness of the "experts" full of knowledge, lacking common sense.
“The more highly educated a man is along certain lines, the easier he is to dupe."
Over a century ago Harry Houdini shared insights about fooling smart people. In "Houdini Exposes the Tricks":
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-brooklyn-daily-eagle-houdini-margery/4691118/
Many know Houdini as the magician. But not as many know he spent the last decades of his life as a political activist. He traveled around the nation and testified before Congress and many state legislatures. Trying to get mediums, seances and psychics banned. He blamed them for scamming his mother out of her money, giving her false hope she could communicate with a loved one who passed. He traced the influences of the mediums back to several White Houses. Including Pres. Lincoln, Mary hosted seances there. As did many other presidents who followed.
There's something to it, along the lines of higher education makes us capable of rationalizing and justifying nearly anything we can conceive of. That inexperts don't fall for.
George Orwell wrote of the same phenomenon. Of the regular common sense folks who see right through the lies:
"they are at once too sane and too stupid to acquire the totalitarian outlook."
The Prevention of Literature
George Orwell
Polemic, January, 1946
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/the-prevention-of-literature/
"Meanwhile, totalitarianism has not fully triumphed anywhere. Our own society is still, broadly speaking, liberal. To exercise your right of free speech you have to fight against economic pressure and against strong sections of public opinion, but not, as yet, against a secret police force. You can say or print almost anything so long as you are willing to do it in a hole-and-corner way. But what is sinister, as I said at the beginning of this essay, is that the conscious enemies of liberty are those to whom liberty ought to mean most. The big public do not care about the matter one way or the other. They are not in favour of persecuting the heretic, and they will not exert themselves to defend him. They are at once too sane and too stupid to acquire the totalitarian outlook. The direct, conscious attack on intellectual decency comes from the intellectuals themselves."
FF - And even the Chinese communists shared insights about fooling smart people during Mao's reign using infectious disease to fundamentally transform the nation from nationalist into communist. This book also introduced the concept of "Disease Politics" - yes, health, disease, plandemics ARE political!:
Rural Health Care Delivery
Modern China from the Perspective of Disease Politics
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2013
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-642-39982-4
Chapter 13.2 “The Higher the Education Level One Has, the Sillier He Is”
FactCheck: TRUE!
In my Stack, https://freedomfox.substack.com/p/the-devious-use-of-infectious-disease I describe the book more at length. There's even more interesting chapters and subchapter titles that are expounded on when reading the book (requires purchase now, used to have free one downloadable/viewable online). Such as:
5.3 Discipline Imposed by Hygiene ["It's a public health emergency! You must comply! You must obey! You must sacrifice! Disobedience is selfishness!"]
8 State of “the People” [The Collective]
9.4 “To Combine Health Campaigns with Mass Movements” ["We're in this together! Together we can beat this!"]
10.3 The “Cleanness” of the State and Legitimacy Construction [Only "clean" people can legitimately function in society. The others are dirty. "Dirty Jews!" “Unvaxxed!”]
11 The Patriotic Hygiene Campaign and the Construction of Clean New People ["Do your part - wear the mask, get the jab!"]
12 A Farewell to the “Sick Man of East Asia”: The Irony, Deconstruction, and Reshaping of the Metaphor ["We're getting rid of our dirty, dirty people. We have a Final Solution."]
13.2 “The Higher the Education Level One Has, the Sillier He Is” [TRUE!!]
13.3 “Comments on Wearing a Medical Mask” [Symbolic display of virtuousness]
17.3 From “the Benevolent Medicine” to the “Formula for Money-Making” [TRUE!!]
17.4 One’s Life or Death Is Utterly Dependent on One’s Fate ["You really can't do anything about it. Some eggs gotta get broken. Won't matter if you're on the good or bad team, it's just your fate."]
19 A Public Country and Its Expansion [Collectivist governance vs. individualist rights]
20 The Logic of Disease Politics ["The pandemic isn't political! There's no "plandemic." We're just following The Science (TM)! You're a science-denier, selfish, conspiracy theorist, death cult."]
FF - 'Smart' people are known to be very susceptible to the politicization of any subject. Much moreso than people with ordinary intelligence while possessing simple common sense. 'Smart' minds can be made hyper-malleable, able to rationalize and justify anything, even sudden shifts from demonstrable, unassailable knowledge to their opposite contradiction. 'Smart' minds are capable of Olympic medal-winning gymnastics to believe something provably false when asserted by those in positions they trust, no matter how patently absurd or contradictory they are.
And remember Voltaire's caution: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." It is the 'smartest' people who commit, orchestrate atrocities. No. We don't "trust the experts." We won't "trust the experts." We do our own research. And are guided by our own common sense. There's a very good reason Thomas Paine titled his pamphlet "Common Sense" when arousing notions of freedom among the colonists who "trusted the experts" like the King told them to do. Lessons for us today are in that 250-year-old+ work.
Thank you!!
I have to contain myself not to write a long rant, but I will end writing one anyway. You probably know this is one of my pet peeves. It has two sides, both of them terrible ideas. One is the thought that "experts" are the ones that are entitled to proclaim "the truth". Eveyone then accepts whatever the "experts" say. The other side, which is a corollary to the first idea, is that no one is entitled to formulate an opinion - even about the most simple, common sense topics - unless they can claim to be an "expert" in the subject. As you said in another comment: "you are not a doctor". What a lot of BS; you cannot dare to say if someone is a woman, unless you are a biologist. Where did they get this crap? I have mentioned elsewhere that I work trying to teach young medical doctors to think critically. One of the things I try to teach them is that they do not necessarily need to recognize the "experts" who tell them what are the "guidelines" to practice medicine. It is an uphill battle.
I can't stand how scientists are paid well (research) if they are satisfying the evil ones in control. They have suppressed many doctors who have come out with the truth, ie; Dr McCullough. CDC needs to be done with. And AMA lies for $. People who live in fear when they can't control things. Those are sheepies.
This describes views that helped develop valuable expertise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPX6smnb4ro
A very thoughtful article! It’s still a “ why “ for me re. why so many people accept with no thought or curiosity the statements of “ experts “ many of whom are bought and paid for. Regarding conversations with friends and family I navigate convo topics very carefully to avoid the minefields……
Me too, I am still trying to figure this one out.
Yes, with the era of covid, it brought a lot out into the open for those with eyes to see, and ears to hear. Experts were being grown by the minute it seemed. However, there were never any experts on the side of sanity. I have heard people say well it is the highly educated that know the truth (the agenda) so therefore the rest of us must not be educated. Excuse me!
Well, there were no agenda-proclaimed "experts" from the shrew pack, that's for sure, but we definitely have our share of experts...highly educated as well.
Exactly!
I know I'm in for a treat when you start your article with "I was out with a friend..." because you will reveal something deliciously ridiculous in what they said. My blood boils at the same things. I lost my best friend for two years because I dared to mention some things I had learned, and she screamed at me "You're not a doctor!" I finally offered the olive branch of forgiveness and she agreed to reconnect, but the censorship is now part of the relationship. I hate being silenced, but there is enough overlap in the forty-year friendship to make it tolerable.
I too lost a friend I had since childhood when I mentioned that some people believe Michele Obama is a man and they have interesting “evidence” to support their opinions. My friend never asked me if I believed it myself or what the evidence was, instead she was absolutely livid that I would even bring the subject up. She ended our friendship the same day by sending me a text saying it was time to go our separate ways. It still hurts to think that such an idle comment would end a friendship of over 50 years, but when I thought back on her reactions to other situations I realized that she was the rigidly intolerant one, not me, and we were destined to part ways eventually. In this case it had nothing to do with an expert opinion but more of an absolute denial of a different opinion.
This is a common response. It is one thing for people to just, with a hand wave, dismiss you. That is how it used to be (still not very wise, IMHO). Now you are HATED for suggesting something might be a tad different than the mainstream is bellowing.
It's so disheartening to be in relationships with friends and family who do not accept the totallity of who you are. I don't remember this being a thing when I was young.
Don't get me started on this one. I have been accused of being hateful, evil, "white-privileged," masculine toxic, homophobic, etc. etc. by people who KNOW me, and claim to LOVE me...this isn't opinion, it is presented to me as fact...even as opinion it is not based on a single objective fact...crazy.
It's always interesting how they can spill their venom on us if we disagree with a thing or two they say.
True! It seemed in the past that people were more curious about the opinions of others and were more inclined to agree to disagree. I find the hair-trigger fits of temper over unimportant matters (to me) startling.
EXACTLY...what you described is exactly the problem. Everyone is way too serious. I remember a time when being eccentric and having "off narrative" insights, opinions, or weird ideas, was, at worst, odd, and mostly just interesting.
Thank you!
"You're not a doctor!" is the agenda at work. Dismiss anything but the mainstream narrative is the goal. We are all stupid, idiot, sheep and don't know a damn thing.
The irony here is that we can be quoting a real, informed, even brilliant doctor, and THAT isn't good enough..."doctor" can only be defined by the agenda...
Like the SCOTUS judge who could not define what is a woman... because she is not a biologist!
True! Look at how Dr Peter McCullough and Dr Vernon Coleman (just to name a couple) have been dismissed
ANYONE having even a SLIGHT differing view of the narrative is totally dismissed, de-platformed, delicensed, and denigrated.
Dangerous times we’re living in
True and even some of our outstanding Canadian doctors: Trozzi, Shoemaker, Hodkinson, Bridle, and more. By the way, I admire Dr. Coleman so much. So much of what he writes is absolute spot on.
I’m not familiars with those doctors, will look them up. Thank you!
Deference to authority and blind obedience to an "expertocracy" is a regression to herd mentality with the thought and behaviour of primitive man.
Very, very well put!!