What Happens When Pretending to Be Crazy Is a Career Strategy
Thursday 03 March 2011
by: Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.
Truthout Op-Ed
Polls indicate that many Republican voters still believe that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States
I have said this before, but it’s worth repeating: a large segment of the population in the United States is completely impervious to rational argument and the presentation of evidence. In our country, learned ignorance is on the rise.
Take, for example, an interesting online exchange between Australian economist John Quiggin and Jonathan Chait, a senior editor at The New Republic, with regard to right-wing agnotology — that is, culturally induced ignorance or doubt — in the United States. The specific issue is birtherism: the claim that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya or anywhere else that is not in the United States, which polls indicate is a view held by a majority of Republican voters.
Mr. Quiggin suggests that right-wingers aren’t really birthers in their hearts; it’s just that affirming birtherism is a badge of belonging, a shibboleth in the original biblical sense — “an affirmation that marks the speaker as a member of their community or tribe,” as Mr. Quiggin wrote on Feb. 17.
“Asserting a belief that would be too absurd to countenance for anyone outside a given tribal/ideological group makes for a good political shibboleth,” he added.
(More here.)
by: Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.
Truthout Op-Ed
Polls indicate that many Republican voters still believe that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States
I have said this before, but it’s worth repeating: a large segment of the population in the United States is completely impervious to rational argument and the presentation of evidence. In our country, learned ignorance is on the rise.
Take, for example, an interesting online exchange between Australian economist John Quiggin and Jonathan Chait, a senior editor at The New Republic, with regard to right-wing agnotology — that is, culturally induced ignorance or doubt — in the United States. The specific issue is birtherism: the claim that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya or anywhere else that is not in the United States, which polls indicate is a view held by a majority of Republican voters.
Mr. Quiggin suggests that right-wingers aren’t really birthers in their hearts; it’s just that affirming birtherism is a badge of belonging, a shibboleth in the original biblical sense — “an affirmation that marks the speaker as a member of their community or tribe,” as Mr. Quiggin wrote on Feb. 17.
“Asserting a belief that would be too absurd to countenance for anyone outside a given tribal/ideological group makes for a good political shibboleth,” he added.
(More here.)
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