Current Reading

This blog is primarily for me to blog my responses to books that I'm reading. Sometimes I blog about other stuff too, though.

Poverty by America by Matthew Desmond.

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Friday, April 24, 2020

The inevitable consequence of egalitarianism

A syphilitic Roman Emperor recently mused on whether doctors should inject disinfectants into people in order to cure the COVID-19 virus, and now companies that make cleaning products are issuing statements warning people not to do that.

It's easy to mock him, but what on earth did my colleagues think would happen if we spent decades proclaiming that everyone is equally smart and every perspective is equally valid? Did they think that Marcus Aurelius would rise from his grave and usher in a new era of philosopher-kings?  Did they think that after we knocked the sages from their stages the demos would find enlightenment and start proclaiming sublime truths? Did they think that the products of these school systems would engage in skeptical, careful examination of hypotheses and demand sound statistical evidence?

What happened is that the American people selected a game show host who's failed at every endeavor in his life (except reality TV) to be their king, and a critical mass of the American people would push their Senators to acquit him when he inevitably conflated public and personal interests. That's what happened.  And now this idiot stands over doctors and makes them genuflect while he prattles on.

And every kool-aid-drinking liberal can say that this isn't what they intended, but isn't it?  Didn't they want to stop elevating the smart and accomplished?  Didn't they want every idiot out there to feel comfortable expressing their views?  Didn't they want to flatten society and diminish the importance of expertise? Didn't they want the smart kids to twiddle their thumbs while the teacher kept pace with the slowest?

You can't make it a moral imperative to hand a college degree to everything that floats to the surface of the k-12 toilet bowl and then scratch your head and wonder how an idiot is standing up there talking over America's most accomplished infectious disease specialists. This was inevitable.