| sebastian_dangerfield |
12-20-2007 04:10 PM |
Fruitcakes
This country is doomed.
I wonder about these "faith" voters. They never articulate what they're thinking and I think the media is misinterpreting them. The faithless seem to think the faithful have no interest in empiral or even anecdotal data or applying scientific or logical scrutiny to any of their beliefs.
But I'm not sure that's what these faithful sorts believe. I think they believe that the ultimate solutions to problems are unknowable, and that their "hunches" are infused with a deeper, but unarticulable knowledge about what they see. They look at all the candidates and are overwhelmed with all the different pieces of information and kneejerk to this folksy, but highly dangerous rube based on the fact that he offers them certainty, which they view as an indication that he, like them, is guided by an indescribable wisdom.
In other words, they're not anti-science so much as believers that they have the better quantum of scientific understanding of the world around - that "faith" is a base of knowledge, just a passive sort the person buying into it will never understand. I think they think they're smarter than logical, rational or scientifically inclined types. And they have the results to prove it - the faithful tend to be happier than everybody else. They benefit from ignorance of what's around them which feeds the notion they have everything figured out. They're not kooks, they're accidental existential snobs.
I used to pity them, but I'm beginning to see them more and more as a cult following that half-scientific contrarian slop Malcolm Gladwell pimped in "Blink," only with a Jesus Freak spin added to it. |
