Ann Althouse spots an endless reoccurring cliche amongst Leftwing Elites:
Welcome to my world: Dane County, Wisconsin, home of people who tell themselves they are the smart people and those who disagree with them must certainly be dumb. They don’t go through the exercise of putting themselves in the place of someone who thinks differently from the way they do. But how would it feel to be intelligent, informed, and well-meaning and to think what conservatives think? Isn’t that the right way for an intelligent, informed, and well-meaning person to understand other people? If you short circuit that process and go right to the assumption that people who don’t agree with you are stupid, how do you maintain the belief that you are, in fact, intelligent, informed, and well-meaning?
What is liberal about this attitude toward other people? You wallow in self-love, and what is it you love yourself for? For wanting to shower benefits on people… that you have nothing but contempt for.
Advertisement
You see this worldview manifested endlessly among the left, whenever you hear the hyperbolic phrase, “I can’t understand why anyone would be a conservative/Republican/libertarian/vote for Bush/vote for Reagan, etc.” Well, why the heck can can’t you? Is it really that difficult to mentally spend a few minutes in our shoes? We’re always asked by the left to celebrate diversity, and to try to understand those not like ourselves. How hard it can be to get a handle on why someone has a different view on say, income tax rates, transfer payments, small business, and government handouts than you do? Or why he likes to get his news from channel #360 on his DirecTV dial than say, channel #202 or #356?
Another example of this mindset can be in the title of Harry Stein’s terrific book last year, which grew out of a conversation he had with a self-described “liberal,” when Harry dared to supply the voice of reason at a dinner party in 2008 and suggest that the young would-be emperor, soul-fixer and lightworker had no clothes.
Perhaps the ultimate mote in a far leftist’s eye can be found here.
(H/T: IP)
It’s entirely consistent with overall strategic vision of the eager new Ruling Class. They want subjects who “feel” rather than think. Thinkers are much too difficult to manipulate, and they just might think their way to the conslusion that their oh-so-emphathetic rulers might be something quite different than they claim to be. “Feelers” on the other hand are always ready for a new enemy, and always ready to feel good about themselves for giving away what they feel is other people’s money.
In reality, the tacit premise of all liberals is “I’m right about EVERYTHING therefore everyone who disagrees with me must be an idiot.” Just being “smart” is not enough to deduce that everyone who disagrees is dumb, for smart people have disagreements all the time. But if one insists that one’s own positions are unquestionably and obviously correct, then any disagreement is foolish and thus a sign of stupidity.
But the catch-22 is that thinking oneself to be always correct is the surest sign of stupidity.