Polls Show Americans are Stupid

And I want to add one other point. You say, in relation to the 9/11 conspriacy theorists: “And that’s a bit scarier a belief that thinking the President doesn’t have a proper birth certificate or get his religion wrong.”

The problem here is that you are treating the birth certificate and religion issues as though they were mere factual blunders. But that’s not the case. The facts (Obama is a Christian and does have a valid Hawaii birth certificate) are widely known, and *especially* widely known by those who deny that either is genuine.

In other words, the issues of Obama’s religion and nationality are directly linked to a wild conspriacy theory of the “Manchurian candidate” variety– Obama “wants the terrorists to win.” We are “losing our country,” etc.

But here’s where you have a point: some of those who are now outraged about wild Obama theories were indeed the same people who came up with wild 9/11 theories.

The remarkable thing to me about most conspiracy theories is that they are usually brought into play in situations in which they aren’t even necessary. For example, one could make a perfectly respectable case that “Bush and Cheney exploited 9/11 for an extremist foreign policy agenda,” instead of losing one’s mind and claiming that post-9/11 events were a pre-planned conspiracy rather than opportunism. Another example comes from those who choose to defend the Palestinians with Holocaust denial, when one could make a perfectly good case for the Palestinians without drinking from that dark brew.

Clark,

Just a small quibble. It’s understandable that 35% of Democrats felt Bush knew about 9/11. He was after all briefed in August 2001 with a memo entitled “Bin Laden Determined To Strike In US.” Just sayin’. ;)

That said, with the amount of disinformation out there, does it really surprise you that uninformed electorate is, well, uninformed?

I don’t think that most people actually believe this things. Instead, they are willing to endorse lies against their enemies. This hatred (on both sides) might be far more damaging than stupidity.

Not what this has to do with political philosophy.

Chris, the larger issue is how to arrive at good governance given the stupidity of people. Of course arguing that the polls are unreflective of what people actually believe – in effect saying people aren’t stupid is one approach. The debate goes back at least to Plato and is basically whether the masses provide good judgment or not. Plato of course is horrified at the thought. Yet there are those of a more Hegelian bent who see a kind of societal evolution and thinks the masses generally get it right.

Rameumpton, I don’t think stupid and intelligence are necessarily opposites. That is I’ve known many otherwise very intelligent and skilled people who end up caught up in conspiracy theories. Of course there is then the old canard of whether very intelligent people are prone to mental illness. If that’s true (and I’m not at all convinced it is) then there should be a borderline where people aren’t incapacitated enough to be called mentally ill but engage in irrational behavior. An other alternative is the prevalence of Asperberger’s Syndrome among the very intelligent. Yet the very way of thinking that can lead to such great theoretical prowess has poor social skills which can lead to some basic problems of common sense with regards to other peoples behaviors.

And then there’s just the fact that you can be intelligent but only skeptical in a narrow range of topics.

Dan, I don’t think the poll is reflecting whether there were indications Al Queda was a threat but rather the particular attack.

Graham, I just don’t know enough about the Evangelical theology of anti-Christs to say much. I’d just note that lots of people get put up as anti-Christs by that group, including Ronald Reagan.

The Harris poll that gave the anti-Christ figure isn’t a truly random poll though. The full poll results are available online. It’s interesting especially to compare the answers based upon whether one has no college or post grad education. What’s scary is how many post-grad people still believe those things. Yes the rates are much lower, but higher than expected. (Perhaps lending credence to Chris’ comments)

Anyway, Harris’ caveat in the small print at the end regarding the poll is significant:

Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris Interactive surveys. The data have been weighted to reflect the composition of the adult population. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to participate in the Harris Interactive panel, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

The other odd thing is that quite a few Democrats think he is the anti-Christ and 8% of self-identified liberals think he is the anti-Christ. So there’s something up with this poll. While I still find it deeply troubling, I think there is something to what Chris says.

Clark,

Chris, the larger issue is how to arrive at good governance given the stupidity of people

Don’t blame the people. Blame those who are in charge of disinforming people, like, say, Roger Ailes. Just look at the stupidity of the tea party movement. I am utterly amazed at how extreme they are going because so much of what they believe is not even close to reality. At the heart of the current lack if political knowledge lies Fox News and its allies.

I think Chris has it about right. I’ve had students that were “truthers” or “birthers” and all those cases, the students would phrase it like this:

“I’m not saying it’s true. But given [XYZ] it’s suspicous. At the very least, we need to have an investigation into that [explitive] because it’s clear he’s hiding something. This may be it, or not. But you never know.”

It always seemed more like a convenient way to attack their political opposition, rather than something they truly believe deep down.

[On another note, I recall a poll a few years ago that showed Republicans were more likely to believe in angels and demons, but Democrats were more likely to believe in UFOs and alien abductions].

I had suggested that. When the pollers won’t even provide error bounds something is amiss.

Doubting a career liar like bush is not stupidity it is completely rational.