The Ignorance of the Tea Party Movement. Not long ago, Republicans were hardheaded realists who derided the woolly pipe dreams of their Democratic rivals. Now they appear to have lost all touch with reality, embracing notions that used to be the preserve of paranoid eccentrics who write rambling letters in green ink. Consider their arguments against less government. Economics has long been an act of faith rather than a rational scientific study for some conservatives and libertarians. The pretense that a successful modern economy could do without a strong central government or that a government should somehow not influence economic policy by intervening is fanciful. There is a reason we are living under the all-pervading influence of John Maynard Keynes rather than the Austrian economists who challenged him, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. Keynes won the argument 80 years ago and transformed our understanding of economics. There is no putting that toothpaste back in the tube. Some deluded conservatives and libertarians may wish to live in an alternative reality where history never happened, but Keynes won and the Austrians lost. Ignorance about economics is just one example of how a resistance to facts has become an electoral asset for a Republican seeking a candidacy from a mob of ignoramuses. Nowhere is this clearer than in the evolution debate, where a fondness for creationism upends science in the name of piety. Charles Darwins contention that we are all descended from common ancestors caused uproar when he first floated it in the 1830s. No one likes being made a monkey. But educated people cannot doubt the wealth of evidence that Darwin was right. All, that is, except the GOP holdouts. This denial of knowledge, or just plain ignorance, is widespread. Recall the absurdity of GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin. From what I understand from doctors, Akin said, If its a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. Akin, a married man with two daughters and four sons — all home-schooled, which may explain a lot. Despite wearing a dunces cap, Akin won the primary — but then lost the election. The fostering of ignorance has also altered the climate change debate. Once it was universally acknowledged that global warming existed, though the reasons for it were less certain. Then came a well-funded campaign to cast doubt on the science behind climate change and disparage the distinguished researchers who provided hard evidence that the globe is getting warmer. Though the muddying of the science was paid for by the big oil brothers Charles and David Koch, whose interest in keeping the world burning fossil fuels is not in doubt, climate change denial found a ready audience among contrarians, curmudgeons and doubters who welcomed the new evidence. It proved their conspiracy theory that all this science was a put-up job. These cranks and kooks even deny they are in denial. But elevating ignorance over scholarship should have no place in conservatism. The role of political leadership is to gently persuade people to face the world as it is, the better to change it. The Age of Unreason that insists that Hayek won, that Darwin lost, that hot is cold, and that babies are found under gooseberry bushes brings all rational debate to a halt. Dont blame the Democrats. Who can reason with those who, to gain popularity with the foolish and the shallow, rail against the real world?
Posted on: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 07:28:55 +0000
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