Does bigotry make you stupid, or vice-versa?

[Cain]

This is an interesting article from Fred Clark of slacktivist, about cause and effect in bigotry:


The Mittens have got me thinking. That would be Shirley and John A. Mittens, of Brooksville, Fla.:

Shirley Mitten, 64, a volunteer at a pregnancy center and a resident of Brooksville, Fla., ... said she does not know if Mr. Obama is a Muslim. "He says he's not, but we have no way of knowing," Ms. Mitten said.

Her husband, John A. Mitten, 64 ... pointed out that Mr. Obama's father was a Muslim.

The middle name Hussein, he said, added to the suspicion. "I guess Obama was named after Saddam Hussein," he said.

So yes, obviously, John A. and Shirley Mitten of Brooksville, Fla., are both A) bigots and B) really, really dumb. But what, exactly, is the relationship between those two things? What is the nature of the relationship between racism and stupidity?

To the extent I'd thought about this before, I think I may have had it backwards. Let me explain. Here is the data, of sorts, with which I've been dealing:

1. I have never met a bigot* who wasn't also stupid.

2. I have known many, many stupid people who were not bigots.

If we were to draw this relationship as a Venn diagram, bigotry would be a smaller circle entirely inside the larger circle of stupidity. The temptation, then, is to think of racism as a particular subset of stupidity, but I think that leads us astray.

The conclusion I had drawn from thinking about this relationship in this way was that stupidity was a necessary, but not a sufficient, cause of bigotry. I was thinking, in other words, that stupidity was the precondition -- that it was the starting point from which one might go on to become a racist.

That seems like a logically sound explanation for the data above, but I now think it's backwards. I think cause and effect flow in the other direction. I think, instead, that bigotry is a sufficient, but not a necessary, cause of stupidity. In other words, I think that bigotry is the precondition -- that it is a starting point from which one inevitably and inexorably goes on to become stupid.

This, I believe, is the dynamic we are seeing at work in the Mittens and in all those terrifying videos of the angry mobs at Sarah Palin rallies. We are not seeing a crowd of naive simpletons being led astray by demagoguery. We are seeing a crowd of people who have chosen to accept unreal ideas, and who are therefore forced to embrace The Stupid.

Racism, bigotry and xenophobia are immoral, of course, but they are also, just as fundamentally, untrue. They are unreal. They provide a theory and a framework for living in the world that cannot be reconciled with the reality of this world. The person who chooses to accept that unreal framework is thus constantly forced to choose between unreality and reality, between the theory and the facts. To hold onto the unreal framework, they must continuously reject reality. And every time they do that, they get a little bit dumber.**

I don't mean for this to be an entirely abstract discussion. I'm interested in the relationship between stupidity and racism because I want to know which is the root cause. This is a matter of both diagnosis and prescription. And I believe there is a prescription. The Mittens may be stupid, but they do not have to remain so. I believe there is hope for them.

The truth is that unreality is simply unsustainable. Maintaining one's belief in an unreal and untrue theory takes too much work. The vigilant rejection of reality has to be, on some level, exhausting. Even the elaborate support structures provided by Fox News and AM radio cannot wholly shield one from the constant intrusions of the world that is. Denying the existence of that world requires more help than even the voluminous right-wing echo chamber can provide.

This, I think, is part of why we're seeing such desperate vehemence at the Palin rallies. The crowd realizes that the unreality it has chosen cannot long survive if the majority of their fellow citizens and neighbors refuse to play along. As long as the entire crowd is choosing to "see" the emperor's splendid new clothes, then it's relatively easy to go along with that choice. But once the crowd reaches a tipping point, once the majority are choosing reality and the truth, then the emperor's nakedness become impossible to deny. For those who have chosen bigotry, racism and xenophobia, this election represents just such a tipping point. They're watching unreality slip through their fingers and they're trying, desperately, to grasp it even tighter.

After this election, part of our task -- yours, mine and our new president's -- will be to find a way to gently invite and welcome these folks back into the real world. My suspicion, or at least my hope, is that eventually, once they are unburdened by the need to constantly choose unreality and therefore stupidity, they will find this a great relief.


- - - - - - - - - - - -


* I'm not here discussing more structural or institutional forms of racism, nor am I talking here about the more general self-justifying mythologies that every privileged people repeats to itself as an apologetic. Set aside here the question of whether or not bigotry is a pervasive, endemic reality in American culture. For the sake of this discussion, let us recalibrate our tools to discount for whatever pre-existing base level of bigotry there may be so that we can here focus on the exceptional bigot -- the sort of person who stands out as more bigoted than the surrounding/underlying culture as a whole.


** At this point you may be suspecting that this post is little more than an elaborate attempt to repackage the argument of the book of 1 John in non-sectarian terms. Well, yeah. Did it work?

[Cainad (dec.)]

LOL, "the Mittens"

But srsly,

** At this point you may be suspecting that this post is little more than an elaborate attempt to repackage the argument of the book of 1 John in non-sectarian terms. Well, yeah. Did it work?

Yes, I think so. I certainly didn't spot any religious overtones in what you wrote, and I find it very thought-provoking. In that sense one could say that you've repackaged it in non-sectarian and also non-declarative terms. You're starting a dialogue on the subject, rather than simply declaring X to be true.



Anyway, you might be on to something here. I'll try to add my thoughts once I get a nap in.

[Cain]

Just to point out, everything beyond the first line is in no way mine, it's all Fred Clark.

I didn't use quote tags because it makes the writing all small and stuff.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Oh, right. *facepalm*

** At this point you may be suspecting that this post is little more than an elaborate attempt to repackage the argument of the book of 1 John in non-sectarian terms. Well, yeah. Did it work?

Yes, I think so. I certainly didn't spot any religious overtones in what Fred Clark wrote, and I find it very thought-provoking. In that sense one could say that he's repackaged it in non-sectarian and also non-declarative terms. He's starting a dialogue on the subject, rather than simply declaring X to be true.



Anyway, Fred Clark might be on to something here. I'll try to add my thoughts once I get a nap in.

Self-fixx0red

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Not to beat an old meme, but this has "Once dogma enters the brain, all rational thought ceases." written all over it.

An interesting piece!

[Iason Ouabache]

Very good article.  I had never seen the term unreality before, but it seems to fit very well.  Racists almost always live in an isolated little bubble where different ideas are intentionally kept out. They are frightened by things are different in any way. They build up an echo chamber around themselves so they don't even have to hear a differing opinion. It is willful ignorance, plain and simple.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Very good article.  I had never seen the term unreality before, but it seems to fit very well.  Racists almost always live in an isolated little bubble where different ideas are intentionally kept out. They are frightened by things are different in any way. They build up an echo chamber around themselves so they don't even have to hear a differing opinion. It is willful ignorance, plain and simple.

Indeed:

...Belief marks the line at which our thinking stops, or, perhaps better, the place where we confine our thinking to a carefully delineated region. Maoists or creationists or jihadists or libertarians take a severely critical view of the world, but they do not step across their created boundaries to take an equally severe view of themselves.

Believers stop their thinking at a designated line only when they refuse to see their shared dependence with disbelievers. They do this even though at some level they are aware that they are doing it--a classic act of willful ignorance. Only by being willfully ignorant do we not acknowledge that, as believers, we have drawn real dialogue with others to a halt. Each of our beliefs is shielded against the damaging scrutiny of others--and ourselves.

This is partly why I think Clark is on to something. Stupidity may not be the reason people confine their thinking to a certain delineated region (in this case, racism and bigotry). Within the confines of what they already believe, they can engage in very deep thinking, as long as their thinking doesn't go outside said region. This is why bigots (and other people with restrictive beliefs) can come up with very elaborate rationalizations for the way they think.

They aren't necessarily stupid to begin with, and they may even do a great deal of thinking within their confining beliefs, but thanks to that confinement they are effectively stupid because they can't/don't think beyond those limits.

[OPTIMUS PINECONE]

Just because their world is small and simple, does that make them bigots? It's kinda cute

[Iason Ouabache]

Just because their world is small and simple, does that make them bigots? It's kinda cute

Yeah.. lynch mobs are just so fucking adorable.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I actually find ignorant, insular Midwesterners kind of adorable myself, as long as they're not actively preventing me from getting a job.

[BADGE OF HONOR]

book of 1 John

This should be plastered all over the internet.  Especially in response to that goddamned Leviticus passage.  Why isn't it?

[BADGE OF HONOR]

I actually find ignorant, insular Midwesterners kind of adorable myself, as long as they're not actively preventing me from getting a job.

Oh yeah?  What about all those ignorant, insular Mormons and Catholics who funded Prop 8?

[Cain]

book of 1 John

This should be plastered all over the internet.  Especially in response to that goddamned Leviticus passage.  Why isn't it?

I suspect because most Fundies do not read the Bible, and those who do are usually directed in their studies by batshit crazy pastors.  However, your suggestion has merit.

[Manta Obscura]

I don't mean for this to be an entirely abstract discussion. I'm interested in the relationship between stupidity and racism because I want to know which is the root cause. This is a matter of both diagnosis and prescription. And I believe there is a prescription. The Mittens may be stupid, but they do not have to remain so. I believe there is hope for them.

This is really interesting, and is getting the gray cells firing.

I can definitely see what Clark is saying about bigotry being the root motivator of stupidity because of the bigot floundering in their own unreality. However, upon reading this my gut instincts started giving off a "chicken and egg" alert. I'm sure that nesting one's self in unreal ideas - bigotry, as it would seem - would be a cause for stupidity, but it seems that sometimes stupidity is just the result of erroneous or incomplete logic, rather than logic relying on falsely held conceptions.

Of course, he does address this in the article by saying:

That seems like a logically sound explanation for the data above, but I now think it's backwards. I think cause and effect flow in the other direction. I think, instead, that bigotry is a sufficient, but not a necessary, cause of stupidity. In other words, I think that bigotry is the precondition -- that it is a starting point from which one inevitably and inexorably goes on to become stupid.

A more complete thesis seems, to me, to say that the stupidity-to-bigotry-and-vice-versa-process is bidirectional, that if one begins the process by vesting themselves within erroneous and unreal ideas, they will continue to accept erroneous ideas (ergo, stupidity). Likewise, if someone is not trained in the exercise of critical faculties of thought and the appropriate application of logical and intuitive thinking, they will be more likely to accept ideas about reality which are unreal (ergo, bigotry).

Continuing with my hypothetical line of thought, if this were the case, the implications would be ripe with positive developments. Though both undesirable states would be reachable both initially and as a process of degradation from one state to the other, it would mean that people could be pulled from both states by the remedy of one or the other. By teaching a person the appropriate faculties of thought to combat stupidity, they would simultaneously gain the critical evaluation skills necessary to stave off bigotry and question their unreal perceptions. Conversely, by being taught to reject convention and investigate assumed beliefs, they would acquire the creative interest to rise above the intellectual ennui that often causes stupidity.

That's assuming, of course, that my chicken and egg hypothesis is correct, and at the moment I cannot think of any concrete examples to support it. As of yet, I just have my intuition to go on which, in itself, might just be an unreal perspective.

[Jenne]

I've dealt extensively, I mean, broadly and widely, with bigotry.  The men in the town my grandfather grew up in lynched a black homeless man for attacking his mother during WWII.  They dragged my 9 year old grandfather to the scene and made him watch it.  He refuses to talk about it to this day.  There's...a book about it now, written somewhere in the 90's.

Anyway, I grew up here in Southern California, born and bred, and you're either from an immigrant family directly or are one yourself.  So you were bound to see someone of a different culture in the stores, in the businesses, in the government, in school, next door, etc.  I took different races for granted, though yes, there was some sort of latent "other-ness" of the way my family in California treated people who weren't white, but it wasn't until I was older that I realized it was truly latent and not overt.

In Missouri, where my mother and her parents were born/grew up, yes, it's overt, it's in the streets, it's everywhere.  In fact, I came to the conclusion after having the balls to argue with my great uncle (my grandfather's uncle mind you) that the black man was NOT sent to earth by god to tease and torture the white man and steal his jobs and women, that this bigotry over there is TAUGHT, BRED into people.

It's not just ignorance--it's a fashion.  It's a cultural attribute.  Education goes VERY far to eradicate the majority of it, but it also takes more than that.  It takes accommodation and acceptance around you of whatever you see and whoever there is to see.

I got a really good view of what can be even scarier about latent racism when I introduced a Muslim Afghan into my family.  My father wouldn't even stay in the same room when my then-boyfriend entered it.  Took him at least 6 mos to a year.  I don't remember at this point because it was 17 years ago, after all.

My point is that it takes 1) re-education and 2) situation.  Stupidity and ignorance, knowledge of that "other-ness" and just how LIKE you those people you look down on and hold prejudice against is not enough when the racism is in the very blood of the people who exercise it.

Anyone ever watch "The Human Stain"?  It illustrates the personal trap we set for ourselves when we refuse to acknowledge just how much this shit actually matters in the long run.

Oh, and EVERY culture is biased/bigoted/prejudiced.  EVERY one of them.  I do not know of one that isn't.